


Afterglow

by sigmalied



Series: Afterglow Universe [1]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, F/F, Sexual Content, a lot of premarital... hand holding, now featuring marital hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:42:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 86,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27200593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigmalied/pseuds/sigmalied
Summary: Lovemaking, Dani realizes, is rarely one discrete event. Rather, it is the befores, afters, in-betweens, and almosts strung together into one cohesive continuum that informs and sustains intimacy.(Thirteen years of a loving relationship, built, explored, and cherished.)
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Series: Afterglow Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191038
Comments: 533
Kudos: 1121





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm new here. My intention is to explore their relationship in detail, from their final days at Bly to the very end. Thanks for reading.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [@sigmalied](https://sigmalied.tumblr.com/) for fic meta or just to hang out. :)
> 
> **Extras:**  
> [Afterglow Cover Art](https://sigmalied.tumblr.com/post/641235592830746624/)  
> [The Evergreen Letters Cover Art](https://sigmalied.tumblr.com/post/643053149669785600) (teaser)  
> [Afterglow: A Reflective Analysis](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15bt1p6aoyipwzCmxLJgZR14JlWPB0VpG-5I5l8_ngdk/edit?usp=sharing) (link to Google doc) _(major spoilers!)_  
> 
> 
> [Some amazing art](https://vegetablefarts.tumblr.com/post/644413331258720256/) by [@vegetablefarts](https://vegetablefarts.tumblr.com/)! _(major spoilers!)_  
> [I drew something, too. (:](https://sigmalied.tumblr.com/post/643956200315256832)

**i. (to dream)**

Around noon the rain abates and the clouds thin to wisps of cotton pulled across the sky, keeping the sunlight kind and gentle on Dani’s cheeks. The kids are preoccupied - Flora is resting, Miles is studying - while Owen and Hannah mind themselves and each other.

Dani sits in one of two chairs on the lawn near the base of a tree, the sleeves of her mauve knit sweater cuffed back once. She chains the dewy stems of clover together. Her hair cascades over one shoulder as she twines and twines, cants her head, and thinks.

She hears the crackle of a turning page. Jamie, objectionably postured in the chair beside hers, reads from a book with yellowed pages and its cover folded behind the present text. There’s an apple in her other hand. She consumes it slowly, biting once a minute by Dani’s estimate, and doesn’t seem to mind when a trail of juice glides down her fingers and settles in her palm.

They haven’t exchanged a word in nearly an hour. Normally that would have alarmed Dani and spurred her into filling the void with chatter for the sake of it, but she doesn’t. Because the space between them isn’t empty, nor does it yearn for _that_ conversation regarding the status of their relationship; the one that will arbitrate limitations and conditions, smooth over misunderstandings, or express regrets.

There is nothing to report, nothing to fix, nothing to define. Moderation isn’t necessary.It already suits them perfectly fine, so they let it be. Let it breathe.

And breathing, as a matter of fact, has become a pleasant exercise. The oppressive tightness in Dani’s chest - a curse she once thought eternal - has given way overnight to newfound ease. The very air feels lighter than she remembers, scrubbed clean of dread.

Dani ascribes that change to Jamie. _Sweet, patient Jamie,_ she thinks as her fingertips fumble over the clover, carrying her sentiment in their ministrations. She cradles her name in her mind like something precious.

_Jamie, Jamie, Jamie._

This new feeling is overwhelming. It's luxurious. There is so much to explore, so much weightless optimism. Dani wades through it. She wraps herself warmly in daydreams of Jamie’s dusty overalls, her dry wit, the fierce love she reserves for her garden. She thinks of Jamie’s hardships, how she raises moonflowers not for ego or profit, but in reverence of hope cultivated from the bones of grief.

Jamie _sees_ her. Mends her when she's crestfallen, makes her laugh, grounds her when she starts floating away. Her eyes, cunning and world-weary, have only ever offered Dani acceptance. And her hands, calloused by hard labor and struggle, have only spoken _safety_ to Dani when folded around hers. 

_Jamie, Jamie, Jamie._

It’s all she can think. In this moment, everything is for Jamie. Birdsong and leaves rustling overhead frame thoughts of her in rosy affection and the buttery blades of grass caressing her ankles remind Dani of Jamie’s icy touch skating over her skin the moment they escaped last night’s drizzle.

Before Jamie, the bedroom was something to be endured, never savored. Dani always woke with less than she had before, as though little pieces of her soul were being whittled away in the night, sacrificed to an altar she misnamed _love._ Eventually, she figured, there would be nothing left for her to give and only then might she sleep soundly. Unperturbed in death.

But _Jamie_ … Jamie is a _gift_.

She remembers Jamie pressing her to the door of her bedroom as soon as it shuts behind them and kissing her softly, slowly, thoroughly. She remembers fingers tangling in her hair and how Jamie can somehow make an accidental pull more pleasant than not. And she remembers - rather recklessly - how well Jamie's hand fits between her legs; so careful, sure, and determined to find all the right gestures that make her whine, when Dani hardly even knows them herself.

Presently, she wants to hook her fingers in the belt loops of Jamie’s jeans, pull her down into the wet grass, and demonstrate everything she’s learned. It’s not the time nor the place, however, not while in full view of the manor. Reality is tragic. 

A blush spreads from Dani’s face to her chest, as quick and devastating as wildfire. She can feel the heat of it and prays Jamie doesn’t glance her way to witness the extent of what she’s done to her. 

The sweetness harbored in her heart is a sublime companion for the want, the _need_ , to have Jamie again as soon and as much as possible. The two entwine like the clover stems she ties, more meticulously now as Dani steadily inhales and tries to curb her enthusiasm. But strange little embers of urgency still smolder deep in her stomach, unquenchable.

In consolation Dani looks over at Jamie and sees a few locks of curled hair hanging over a brow stern with concentration. She studies the quirk of her lips, the bridge of her nose, the wiliness of her hands belied by dainty wrists. It takes Dani a while to realize Jamie hasn’t turned a page in nearly ten minutes, when previously that interval never exceeded five. 

Feeling her stare against the side of her head, Jamie turns to meet and hold Dani’s gaze. Still, they say nothing.

A tiny smile pulls at the corner of Jamie’s mouth. After setting down her apple core in the grass, she extends a pinky finger in Dani’s direction. The offer elicits a short, clumsy laugh from Dani, but she accepts without hesitation and curls her finger around Jamie’s. It’s a little sticky from the apple’s sugars, but Dani holds fast.

Jamie returns to her book and Dani to her clover, which she begins unraveling.

For the first time in her life, Dani doesn’t feel the future closing in on her like a vise. She feels it unfurling, blossoming at golden daybreak.

**ii. (tomorrow’s promise)**

Circumstances change within a matter of hours. Seconds, really, between the moment Dani sloshes into the lake and the instant the Lady faces her. But Flora is worth anything Dani could trade, and the transaction is complete before Dani can quite comprehend just _what_ she’s traded.

The future narrows again, darkening on all sides as Dani crowds her soul with a passenger whose sole province is _rage_. She feels it lurking within her, carving glistening wakes in the watery abyss of inevitability. She mourns her fate. Doom becomes her world and Dani feels too ruined to ask for comfort.

She doesn’t need to ask. Jamie is already there, kissing her hand in an implicit promise Dani can’t hold her to, not because she doesn’t want the company, but because she can’t bear to burden Jamie when all she's done for Dani is set her free. Even so, the affirmation in the look Jamie gives her is as firm as stone and as certain as the end awaiting them. 

Neither knows exactly what will happen, or when it will happen. So they do what they can. They give their little flail against the void.

They _try_.

Henry shows his gratitude. Their severance includes enough cash to jumpstart virtually any life path they choose, so they catch an overnight flight to New York while bouncing the word _adventure_ between them. But Dani struggles to dedicate herself to a new lease on life when the clawing at the back of her skull suggests she find a place for a tomb.

Once they’re suspended miles above the Atlantic sprawling black and endless in every direction, Dani’s apprehension flares. A few hard cocktails help, albeit marginally. What helps most is reaching over the armrest to slip her shaking hand into Jamie’s, who holds her steady and leans in to whisper, “You’re brave, you know. A fair bit braver than I’ll ever be.”

Dani shuts her eyes and breathes. She adjusts her hand to clutch Jamie’s tight enough to make her knuckles go white, then grimly confesses, “I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life.”

“Being brave isn’t about not being scared,” says Jamie. “It’s about being scared and doing it anyway. And you’re always pulling shit you ought not to.”

She can’t help but sigh a laugh, eyelids fluttering before squeezing shut again to keep tears at bay, because Dani knows she’ll start crying the moment she opens them. Upon realizing she’s probably hurting Jamie, she relaxes her grip as much as she can without forfeiting its security.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jamie assures her, and Dani clings to those words like the only buoy in the ocean.

It’s the longest night of Dani’s life. Flying retrograde to the sunrise extends the darkness by several hours. It’s far more temporally disorienting than going the other way. In the delirium of exhaustion Dani questions if dawn will ever come again.

But God, is this city _bright_. During their cab ride to the hotel, Dani marvels at the dazzling lights beyond the window and wonders if they even need the sun in New York, when they can manufacture their own pseudo-daylight over innumerable blocks of towers that shine and flicker brighter than the firmament. There’s a defiant hubris here unlike anything she’s seen before, and it leaves an impression on her.

In the hotel room they pile their luggage on one bed and collapse into the other, too weary to sustain their genuine attempts at handsiness. So Dani drapes her arm over Jamie’s waist and prays for tomorrow in the dwindling moments before sleep.

When tomorrow comes, they stagger about their morning routines. Dani pulls on her turtleneck backwards and can’t seem to get her hair right. Jamie subjects herself to a cold shower and wears the same pair of pants - or _trousers,_ as Jamie so insists - that she wore yesterday. Eventually they drag themselves to the hotel’s restaurant with thirty minutes to spare for the breakfast buffet hours.

Dani dips a spoon into a cup of coffee to stir her addition of cream and sugar, watching the deep brown pale to an amiable beige. Her first sip spreads a warmth through her chest that threatens to tug her right into the sleepy daze riding her heels. Seconds later, Jamie slides into the red upholstery of their booth with a steeping mug of tea and a plate loaded with micro-portions of virtually every dish available.

At the raise of Dani’s brow, Jamie shrugs and explains, “Figured I had to see what all the fuss was about. You Yanks eat breakfast like you’re about to hibernate for winter. Pass me that, yeah?”

She traces Jamie’s nod to the bottle of syrup at the end of the table. “Oh, you don’t want that,” says Dani. “That’s not the real stuff. The real stuff - _real_ maple - is much better.”

Jamie waves a hand to gesture about the restaurant and argues, “Everyone here’s using it.” When Dani refuses to enable her, Jamie reaches for the bottle herself.

A generous dollop drips over the side of Jamie’s pancake. Once she has a piece of it on her fork, Dani knows there’s no saving her now. The result is expected: Jamie’s expression twists into a shade of confounded distress Dani can’t assign a name to. She seizes the offending bottle to examine the label and mutters in bewilderment, “It's fucking rank,” before trying to wash it down with tea, only to find her beverage similarly antagonistic. Ultimately, Jamie ends up with her face in her hands, wondering aloud what she’s gotten herself into.

Dani intervenes. Her eyes used to drift toward Jamie over the dinner table so often at Bly that she can guess which items most coincide with her preferences. She slides over her own plate of scrambled eggs, exchanges the flimsy side of bacon for the sausage Jamie’s brought on her sampling platter, permits a little blueberry muffin to stay, and confidently tells her, “Try this.”

It’s not the flavor profile Jamie’s used to, but she’s elated to have something edible in front of her.

“You’ll be looking out for me, then?” Jamie smirks at her between bites. “In this hostile, savage land?”

Dani tucks her chin in her hand and teases back, “I think you’ll learn fast. But yes… if you promise to listen when I warn you about something.” She indicates the bottle of syrup with her gaze and Jamie laughs, gently, while familiar mischief glitters in her eyes. Beneath the table, Dani moves her legs forward to rest alongside Jamie’s.

_Jamie, Jamie, Jamie._

She turns her name over in her head, fondling its familiarity like a jewel.

Tomorrow _has_ come. Dani’s realization is sudden enough to strip the serenity from her face. It’s concerning, how easily she forgets her curse. Up until this instant she’s been convinced that only dour vigilance reserves the power to keep the Lady in check, but Dani’s starting to consider that, perhaps, she’s armed herself with the wrong mindset.

Paying it mind is what plunges her into that claustrophobic cell of darkness and fear. Paying it mind is what empowers it, what amplifies the tiny scratching at the back of her mind to a deafening crescendo of despair.

So Dani turns the lights on and drowns out the sound. She watches Jamie dissect a raspberry-filled pastry. At the Museum of Modern Art they bicker over solemn and playful installations and what constitutes _art_ in the first place. They doze on the lawn of Central Park in the evening, venting about their childhoods until the sun sinks below the lush line of trees. They stand together under the flashing billboards of Times Square, illuminated by a parade of every perceivable color, and keep attached at the hand so they won’t lose each other in the swarming traffic.

And Dani speaks Jamie’s name in her mind louder than the nagging dread can scream.

**iii. (compromise)**

Ever since Christmas, Jamie’s been unusually withdrawn. The abrupt downturn contagiously impacts Dani, whose reflex is panic. After all, how much can she realistically expect from someone on a journey of last rites and wishes? Because that's what this is, once the veneer of _adventure_ peels back to expose a noble but fatal errand. There's only so much they can do to ignore the ever-present shadow of morbidity looming over every laugh, every landmark, every glancing affection. It follows, always.

Jamie does not deserve to be confined to a life spent so doggedly pursued by decay. Jamie deserves endless horizons of possibility, nothing less.

Despite how much she wants to, Dani can’t give her that.

A question Jamie posed on their last day in Bly, while driving down that long green road leading away from the manor, wells up in Dani’s conscience: “You’ll let me know, okay? When you’re not feeling good?”

Assuming that policy is mutual, Dani chooses a morning to inquire.

“Yeah,” Jamie admits while smoking out of their room's open window. She taps her cigarette over an ashtray perched on the sill. “I’ve been a little… out there. But it’s all good. It’ll pass.”

Her answer doesn’t assuage Dani’s fear.

On New Year’s Eve, Dani gifts Jamie a photo album to house the bundles of wintry photographs rubber-banded together in her suitcase, captured by the instant camera bought on their way north to Vermont. They spend the final hours of 1987 drinking wine and arranging photographs in their rented lodge room with the television tuned to the New Year’s event at Times Square. A pale flurry falls silently outside, visible between the half-drawn curtains. 

Midnight arrives and Dani Clayton yet lives in the year 1988. A single turn of the calendar, compounded by two glasses of wine, is enough to make her simultaneously ecstatic and weepy. She laughs and laughs, giggles into the kiss she shares with Jamie during those transitory seconds. She doesn't even notice the tear gliding down her cheek until Jamie catches it with a brush of her thumb. 

“You good?” Jamie asks her, leaning her forehead into Dani’s.

Dani brings her arms around her neck and nods, but the answer is more complicated than that. Immense longing is spinning out like a burning wheel in her heart, revitalizing her desperation for life - a good one and a lot of it. She wants it for herself as much as she wants it for Jamie, especially now that the fear of losing her companionship is paramount in her conscience.

Tonight, Dani contains more determination than she knows what to do with. Naturally, it overflows. 

She shoves a surprised but nonetheless delighted Jamie onto the bed, holds her down with a hand splayed assertively on her chest, and gives and gives as though it's the last thing she’ll do. She gives in _excess_. She wears Jamie down until she’s breathless, spent well beyond her usual limit, and pleading, “Dani, you know I’d love to keep on until the sun comes up, but if we go again I think I’m going to die. _Actually_ die.”

The first day of 1988 tumbles by in an anxious daze. Jamie carries shadows beneath her eyes and can’t seem to get enough caffeine and cigarettes. Meanwhile Dani is reticent with worry, thinking she's gone too far and proven herself _literally_ too much for Jamie to handle; the exact opposite of what she had originally intended to convey. Apologetically, she fetches breakfast. Folds Jamie's clothes for her. Gives her space. Lets her seek proximity only if she desires it.

At three in the afternoon, they prepare for a stroll through town. It’s taken Dani all day to muster the courage to say something, anything. Even if all she achieves is gauging the mood.

From where she’s seated at the edge of the bed lacing up her boots, Dani pauses to catch Jamie’s attention. “Hey, I’m—” She blinks, smiles, and exhales at the absurdity of the issue. “I’m sorry for— for pushing you, back there? Last night?”

Jamie’s brow furrows with confusion until she realizes what Dani’s referring to. A smile flickers across her lips as she stuffs her hands into her coat pockets and aims her gaze at the short moss-colored carpeting.

“I don’t know what came over me.” Dani runs a sheepish hand back through her hair to part it away from her face. “I guess I just had a lot to say.”

The longer Dani addresses her runaway libido, the wider Jamie’s wry smile grows. “’S okay,” she replies, rocking herself a few times on her heels. “Haven’t been done quite like that since… _ever_ , really, if I’m being honest. Although, I have to ask: did you say everything you meant to, or do you still need to finish what you started? Because I’m a great listener.”

Dani blushes violently and sputters out a terrible, relieved laugh.

While crunching through fresh snow blanketing the trails winding between skiing lanes on their way to the outskirts of town, Dani notices Jamie peering at her with telling frequency. If she permits her self-confidence to reach so high, she’d identify admiration. There’s something else there, too.Intent. It’s subtle, but Jamie’s holding it close to her chest.

Later, once the sun is down and they’ve returned to the main resort building, they huddle into the corner of a sofa in the common area before a lit fireplace. They warm themselves, browse travel magazines and brochures in search of their next destination, and watch other bundled-up tourists mill around the reception desk.

Out of the blue, Jamie folds a hand over Dani's and asks, “Can we talk about something?”

Dani’s heart somersaults in her chest. “Of course,” she says.

They’ve been adrift since late October, floating up and down the east coast without a space to tether themselves to, nowhere to call home but each other’s company. And that has sufficed, says Jamie, but there’s a detail brooding in the background that _one day at a time_ can’t fully address.

“I don't want to stop,” says Jamie. “Traveling around, I mean. But I think I need… I need—”

“A break?” Dani supplies, going cold when Jamie responds affirmatively to the word. 

“Yes. Or, no. Not like that. _No,_ don't look at me that way. That's not it.” 

“Then tell me. Please.”

Jamie gives a nod and presses on. “What I'm _trying_ to say is… Look. It's you and me, Poppins. Doesn't matter where or how. But there's a problem, and it's mine to bear. There's these little things—” She wrings her hands in thought, “—and I mean _tiny_ things, like waking up and not immediately knowing where I am, or figuring out where to scrounge up supper… They build up a feeling over time. Like having a stone in my chest. Sharp and heavy.” She pauses to swallow past the audible lump in her throat. “I shake. I smoke more than I should.”

Dani reaches out to rest a sympathetic hand on her forearm. The motion makes Jamie shut her eyes, crack a fatalistic smile, and shake her head at herself. Her frustration and shame, carried around for days to ferment in secret, is on display all at once. Dani suddenly understands why Jamie was so initially hesitant to leave her _boring_ life behind.

Forming and maintaining good habits is what kept Jamie sane during the hardest days of her life. Routine. Stability. Accountability. It gave her direction and purpose. The longer she goes without, the easier it is to dial back into caustic mindsets that bring about trouble, self-contained or otherwise. She likes to pretend that her past is a distant nightmare, but it’s never left her, not completely. Some scars run deeper than her skin.

“Worst part is,” says Jamie, “I know what'll help. I have to toss in my wrench and hope it doesn't break everything. So, here goes. I know that… buying or renting property is a big investment. It's a commitment.”

It is. It would add to their situation an element of assumed longevity - a word that makes Dani flighty. 

Jamie lowers her voice when a couple sits down on the sofa adjacent to theirs, preoccupied with a printed itinerary but well within earshot. “It doesn't have to be permanent. Just somewhere to roost between trips. Somewhere to hang our coats. But if it's too much, tell me. I'll figure something out. I'll—”

 _“Jamie,”_ Dani stops her with an emphatic whisper. She gazes at her ardently, earnestly, hoping to convey _Is that all? Is that all, Jamie, when I'd give you so much more?_ Leaving no room for doubt or uncertain terms, she promises, “We can start looking at ads tomorrow.”

The look Jamie gives her breaks her heart. It's guilt, vulnerability, hope.

Tomorrow, incidentally, starts significantly later than planned.

Once they're alone, lounging through the final hours of the first day of the new year, Jamie observes a serenity Dani hasn't seen in days. She folds her legs over Dani's lap and fantasizes about all the daffodils, peonies, and roses she'll grow.

There will be bouquets, she vows. Every day, a bouquet on the table. She'll draw up schedules. She'll plan her perennials around day-trips and week-trips, and she'll press the feeblest blossoms, unfit for bouquet exhibition, into books to be memorialized and cherished alongside their photo albums. 

Dani strokes her face, swept up alongside Jamie in her dream. Her wonderfully feasible dream. _Every day, a bouquet._

That, she can certainly commit to.

When the darkness deepens, and night quiets and runs cold on their extremities, Jamie instigates with deceptive nonchalance, “Wasn't there something else you wanted to say to me?”

Dani hums and slides her hands down to unbutton the front of her jeans. “There was,” she answers, voice dreamy with purpose. A little appreciative gasp rewards the audacity of her next touch. “I have _so_ much to say to you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**iv. (the home of the dead)**

By late February, their tiny apartment a few miles outside of Burlington, Vermont, is furnished to the humble yet livable extent that an itinerant lifestyle prescribes. They have adequate seating, a little bed they can cram into without overt complaint, and a closet full of clothes whose sides demarcated by ownership frequently cross. Out on the balcony burgeons Jamie’s makeshift garden of potted plants, aching for the coming spring. They’re cared for over periods of absence by an improvised drip irrigation system Jamie fashions from a plastic jug of water and a bit of smartly-laid tubing.

They come and go. Dani buys a used car: a three-year-old champagne-colored sedan in good condition. They see the west, they see the south. Jamie is further astounded by the enormity of America, thinking many states ought to be their own countries based on area alone, if not the surprising degree of cultural disparity between neighbors. The only true uniting factor, she observes, is common language, and even _that_ can prove highly variable. 

“So,” Jamie speaks up as she and Dani pore over a map outstretched on the dashboard. They’re parked in a grocery store’s lot, preparing to resupply before heading over the Indiana border into Illinois. “Which one’s yours again? Is it this one?”

Jamie points at Wyoming. 

_“No,”_ Dani answers with feigned exasperation. “That’s not even close to what I said.”

“I can’t be too far off. You clearly implied it was the arse end of nowhere, and I reckon this one fits that description well enough.”

She corrects Jamie by swatting her finger away from the map and replacing it with her own. “It’s this one. Iowa.”

“I’ll— I’ll what? I’ll who?” 

Jamie deflects Dani’s hand before she can pretend to shove her and laughs.

“Seriously, though. Poppins, look. It’s just one more state over. We should go, yeah? See where you grew up?”

The humor illuminating Dani’s expression fades to austerity. “I, um.” She tries to recover her smile and play it off, but ends up tripping over her own words. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. There’s just, um… It’s not—”

Seeing how the proposition discomforts her, Jamie drops it. “Okay. No, I get it. We can skip that one.”

And they forget about Iowa. For another month or so. 

By March they’re home again, counting their pooled savings, and regretfully conclude that a source of reliable income will become more or less a permanent necessity by the start of June. 

Dani briefly considers returning to teaching, but culls the idea when she recognizes that her unfortunate disposition has no place in proximity of children, not when she lacks the vaguest clue of how and when it will manifest. It hurts dreadfully to see her career at its utter end. She grieves it, sheds tears over it. Because it is, in essence, a type of death - the closing of a door, a lock turning in place, to seal away a specific joy forever. 

But Dani will not resent Jamie’s concurrent discovery of a viable occupation for herself. Her luscious balcony garden catches the eye of multiple neighbors, who ask if they can buy cuttings and flowers from her. Jamie obliges. The neighbors tell their friends. And into Jamie’s waiting hands flutters a brilliant idea for the future: _florist._

Small businesses are substantial risks. They won’t delude themselves by pretending it will be easy, or that success is guaranteed through merit of hard work. They’ll need a loan in their current situation, but loans are risks, too. They often come with draconian interest rates and creditors care not for the sad stories of shops struggling to make end’s meet. 

Then, like the slow appearance of ink bleeding through paper, Dani remembers the house in Iowa. 

It has sat for months, vacant, forgotten, held in stasis as a last resort; a place to resign to when her escapist galavanting across the ocean inevitably fell apart. And even after Dani returned to the States, perhaps it continued to occupy the same role of retreat deep in the back of her mind, where scenarios of she and Jamie parting ways prowl. 

Obviously none of that has happened, and there have been no signs of it happening anytime soon. Even if it did, Dani can’t imagine returning. More important is the present and how the house might serve them now. 

Selling it would obviate their need for a loan. 

Thinking it excellent news, Dani announces her decision over dinner. 

Jamie, however, lacks vital context and knowledge of this being an option at all. She freezes with her fork halfway to her mouth, lowers it back to her plate, and says, “You have a _house?_ ”

Baffled by Jamie’s surprise, Dani answers, “Yes. I had a mortgage payment last month. You saw it. _You_ opened the letter.”

“Christ,” mutters Jamie. She releases her fork with a clatter and lifts a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I thought that was for this place.”

Dani pauses to convey extended disbelief. “That comes next week.” 

“Dani, why would you keep a house you’re not living in?”

She shrugs and lowers her gaze to the table. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to need it.”

Their eyes meet again and hold for several seconds before averting. There’s silence. Too much of it, Dani thinks, for this particular moment. She knows Jamie is witnessing her now, firsthand. The _rest_ of her; the weakness that buries troubling confrontations until negligence has seen them wildly overgrown. Ironically, this is one of the only instances Dani can recall where that weakness has worked to her benefit, but Jamie’s expression remains opaque and unmoved by serendipity. 

“I lived there,” Dani elaborates, her voice hollowing, “before I went overseas. Eddie and I both had jobs, so… After we got engaged, we bought a house. We were able to put a lot of money down on it. Then, when he died, it was left to me. He left me everything. Except the car. Well, technically that was mine too, but I, uh… I gave it to Carson. His brother. That’s not a joke. That’s really his… name.” 

Dani trails off to watch Jamie slowly nod in comprehension. “And you want to sell it now?”

“For the money. So we can start your business debt-free.”

“That’s it, then? You’re casually tossing an entire house over your shoulder to pitch in, what, forty, fifty grand?”

“It’s actually worth a little more than that. It’s a nice neighborhood.” When Dani notices Jamie still eyeing her expectantly, she iterates her motivation. “Why not? It’s for both of us. I don’t understand why you’re being so jumpy about this.”

“Jumpy, eh?”

“Yeah. You’re being _jumpy_. Like unreasonably jumpy.”

“Well,” Jamie breathes deeply to collect herself. “Truthfully, I’m grateful. I’m very grateful. To the point of maybe discouraging you from doing this, because it’s so much money. It’s _so_ much money, Dani. But I’m also a little disoriented by houses conveniently materializing out of nowhere.”

Dani’s features turn stony. “I _thought_ you _knew.”_

“Guess I wasn’t paying attention,” Jamie huffs and returns to her dinner, but only to pick at it.

Over the following week, Dani clings to the hope that she’ll be able to arrange a sale remotely. She makes expensive phone calls to realtors in another time zone. She does math - a _lot_ of math - and scratches through half a notepad with estimates, quotes, and fees. The most obstructive issue is that her property, in its current state, is not very marketable. Existing furniture needs to be cleared, the landscaping needs maintenance, and minor repairs need to be made. Services exist to undertake this work in her absence, but the projected costs well exceed their budget. 

“I mean, what if it takes a while to sell?” Dani looks up from a sea of notes cluttering their modestly-sized dining table and turns in her chair to face Jamie. “We’d have no way of recovering the costs in the meantime.”

“We’d have to take the loan,” Jamie infers from where she leans against the fridge, arms folded across her middle. “Defeats the purpose a bit, doesn’t it? I like watching you do maths, by the way. It’s kind of hot.”

Dani rolls her eyes, turns back around to hide her smile, and retorts, “I could teach you sometime.”

“Ouch. Set myself up for that one.”

Dani knows the solution before she’s ready to accept it. Gradually, she emerges from bitter denial. She has the house’s utilities resumed, plots a new course on one of their well-annotated paper maps, and informs Jamie, “I have to go there. I have to get things sorted out.” 

And, naturally, Jamie goes with her to help.

It’s not like their other trips. This is work, arduous work, in realms of both physical and emotional stamina. It’s two days of driving without diversion. Two days of fuzzy radio stations, long purgatorial country highways, and rotating into the driver’s seat every six hours or so, with one night under scratchy motel bedsheets paced between.

When the streets finally start looking familiar, Dani finds herself gripping the wheel harder than she means to. They pass the elementary school she used to teach at. Dani knows the biggest department store in town is exactly three blocks over, and in four more is the restaurant where she and Eddie—

“Dani.”

“What?” 

“It’s a stop sign, not a light.”

They’ve been idling at a deserted four-way stop for several seconds beyond the length of a conventionally safe pause. Dani glances at Jamie, shies away from her expression of concern, and drives on. 

It’s not icy dread that she feels. That specter of despair is long departed. No, what Dani feels is something so pervasive in people there can be no remedy, not ever, so long as humanity persists in its current temperament: the remote, ebbing woe of nostalgia weighing heavily in her heart.

“Really? That wee blue one?”

Dani parks in the driveway, retrieves her key from the ignition, and sits a while peering through the windshield at the house’s unassuming profile and messy line of shrubs beside the porch. The lawn has gone feral too, brought out of dormancy early by a trend of warming weather. A few articles of trash are ensnared by the hedge dividing her property from the neighbor’s. 

Jamie patiently awaits her lead from the passenger’s seat. After all, it _is_ Dani’s house. At length, Dani draws a stabilizing breath and they disembark, stretching their legs and taking in the afternoon sun. Dani furtively surveys their surroundings to check if any curious neighbors have spied their arrival and hurries along.

It’s a touch too cold inside when Dani lets them in. Jamie gathers her bearings. She slips her hands into her pockets and mills about, letting her attention flow from the cozy living room furniture to the framed photos on the mantle above the fireplace. She takes one in hand, wipes her thumb over a thin layer of dust coating the glass pane, and sees for the first time the face of Eddie O’Mara. While Dani can’t precisely surmise what’s running through Jamie’s head, the hardness of her stoicism betrays a silent conflict. 

Jamie returns the frame to its original perch and asks in honest concern, “Do you smell that?”

It takes Dani a second to regard the refrigerator. “Oh, shit.”

As it goes, their first order of business is sorting Dani’s more portable possessions. Jamie brings in several cardboard boxes from the back seat of the car to collect anything worth keeping. Clothes, books, media. Everything else - the bulk of it, Dani prefers - will fill a roll of black trash bags fated for donation or destruction. While Dani sees to this task alone, Jamie ties her hair back, pulls on a pair of thick work gloves, and engages the yard.

The house is a museum. Its trove of artifacts compose a perfect diorama of a life that seems so near and far away at once. Dani happily reunites with a patent leather purse she missed in England. Her favorite music cassette tapes are waiting where she left them, eager to be played in a new home for a new audience. She opens the drawers of a jewelry chest Judy gave her for Christmas when she was eighteen and rediscovers all the rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and brooches she’s accumulated over the years. 

But Eddie is here, too. His shoes stand in a neat row on the floor of the master bedroom closet, undisturbed. A bottle of his cologne is on the bathroom sink countertop. Dani had never mustered the courage to alter these effects lest her interference shatter the fragile illusion of normalcy. Those were dark days - the ones between Eddie’s death and her departure. They are a fog in her memory, a blurry smear of guilt and grief and complete loss of direction. 

Even now, removing them is no small task. Dani starts to feel like an intruder in her own house, as though it weren’t hers at all. Maybe it never really was, in retrospect. It’s more akin to an abandoned prison, for what the walls have witnessed, they keep within. They retain the trauma and silent desperation of a woman who spent her entire life walking into an open grave.

This, Dani thinks, is the home of people who are dead.

They retire for the day at five o’clock. Jamie trudges in smelling like dirt, grass, and the outside air. The sweat beading on her brow shines as she approaches the stovetop range and lights a cigarette over a burner. 

Dani never thought of gardening as a rugged profession before she met Jamie, who takes no measures to conceal or omit the grimy, toilsome labor that produces such sweet, delicate blossoms. And she likes that about her. A _lot._

While Jamie showers, Dani steps out to buy some sandwiches from a deli she’s known since childhood, not a mile outside the suburban sprawl. They sit together on the living room floor, eating and discussing tomorrow’s objectives under sunset’s waning light. 

“The lawn’s in order,” Jamie reports, picking out a slice of tomato to eat it straight away. “The hedges, too. Ripped out a lot of dead matter and fixed up the flower bed. Should be ready for replanting, preferably with something low-maintenance and suited for the climate. I’ll do that next, then take a look ‘round to see if there’s any paint touch-ups or damage that needs addressing. How are you doing in here?” 

“It’s going well,” says Dani. “Yeah, I think I’ll be done sometime tomorrow morning. Then I’ll have to start cleaning. Not looking forward to that, not so much.”

Jamie keeps looking at the pile of framed photos Dani left by the fireplace, in neither a box nor a trash bag. “What’ll you do with those?” she asks, trying and failing to sound indifferent.

A shallow line appears in Dani’s brow. “I’m thinking about giving them to Judy,” she answers. “Eddie’s mom. And maybe a few to my mom, if she wants them.”

“How are you two getting on these days? You and your mum?”

“I haven’t called her in a while. It’s been maybe two months? I guess I just… can’t think of what to say. She knows I’m back in the States, but she doesn’t really know any of the details. Maybe that’s best, at least for now.”

They’re quiet for a long time. Jamie eventually reveals a thought she’s been holding onto all day.

“I saw in one of those photos, you were kids. You and him. You grew up together.”

Dani nods and says, “I think I was six when I met Eddie.”

Jamie mulls over the information and decisively concludes, “Someone like that in your life should’ve fancied himself your brother, not your husband. Maybe his intentions were fine in his own head and looked fine to everyone around him, but it doesn’t change the fact that he trapped you. He made you his when you should’ve been out meeting other people. Learning about them. Learning about yourself. Just thinking about it makes me fucking livid.” She gives a little shrug to punctuate her cold fury and takes another bite of her sandwich. 

Dani knows she’s right. Jamie is _so_ right she feels an old blade of agony twisting in the pit of her stomach when she’s reminded of her stolen adolescence. Years and years of isolation, of entangling complex emotions and identity that only grew denser and more unresolvable the longer she went ignorant of what life _could_ _be_ outside her narrow existence. 

She can’t eat anymore. Her stomach’s in knots. The last remnants of Eddie fill the black bags in the kitchen nearly to bursting, but this house still echoes him. He is in the shape of it. He is the assumed innocence of nightfall pooling in the ceiling’s shadows above her head. He is not here, but Dani is, and through her the house shudders, and remembers. 

When it’s time to turn in for the night, Jamie starts heading for the bedroom but Dani catches her by the arm, compelled by a sudden, visceral aversion. “Where are you going?”

Jamie blinks. “To bed,” she says rather dumbly, indicating the door with a thumb. “You’ve got a bed.”

Dani shakes her head, slowly and deliberately, and barely breaks a whisper when she tells her, “Jamie, I’m not sleeping in there ever again. Not even with you. You can go ahead, but… I won’t follow.” 

In an instant Jamie understands. Instead they camp out in the living room, huddled together on the sofa beneath a set of blankets Dani retrieved from a cabinet. There’s no room. Dani can feel Jamie’s elbow wedged into her ribs and her forearm keeps going numb from being smashed under her shoulders, but Dani’s rest is more peaceful than any she ever obtained from that bed. 

The next day, Jamie has a surprise for her. She leads a wary but trusting Dani into the bedroom, where her old mattress and box spring are propped up against a wall. Nearby, the bare maple bed frame has been pulled to the center of the room. Before Dani can inquire, Jamie steps over to relinquish custody of a sledgehammer she found in the backyard shed. 

“How about it?” she asks. “Want to take a swing?”

Dani curls her fingers around the handle, accepting the weight with purpose. 

Her first strike cracks the headboard, and then come the slats. They splinter at Dani’s will until the bed appears cloven in two. 

**v. (the conversation)**

_The Leafling_ opens its doors for business mere days before Mother’s Day. 

It’s no coincidence. Jamie has been very deliberate in her planning, saying to Dani on several occasions as she rushes out early every morning leading up to that crucial deadline, “Gotta run. It’s sink or swim now.”

She’s spent weeks impressing and winning the hearts of several local suppliers with her intimate knowledge of the art of growing. To their products she dedicates two-thirds of The Leafling’s shelf space. The rest, she grows herself and proudly markets them as such.

The shop itself is lovely. There’s a therapeutic abundance of natural light and color seeps in like a spring from all sides. Being surrounded by so many living things feels like an unending embrace. 

Dani settles in as co-manager. She’s good at keeping ledgers and inventory, and finds herself surprisingly enthralled with the frivolous practice of floriography. She buys books on the subject and spends her evenings thumbing through them. 

When she asks Jamie for her wisdom on the subject, she answers, “Never really considered that stuff. If a plant has something to say, it’ll tell me itself. It’ll move with the sun, or wilt, or only bloom for a week. That’s how they speak. Plus, in my experience no two marigolds have ever been the same. I’ve had happy easy-going ones, and ones that threw fits no matter what I did. It’s like siblings. Almost genetically identical, but they can turn out different as night and day. You find their meaning by raising them yourself.”

Still, it’s useful for business. People appreciate concrete direction when overwhelmed by choice, and Dani provides it. During Mother’s Day weekend, when the stakes are highest, she proves herself invaluable. Wherever Jamie draws blanks at the questions of clueless sons and husbands seeking established and well-known profundity, Dani sidles in with no shortage of recommendations.

“I just grow this shit,” Jamie says between rushes. She’s not upset, not in the slightest. Rather, she’s thrilled by the purchases. “Didn’t think I’d have to actively tell people what to buy. I figured they’d know that on their own and notice us selling the best ones.”

“It’s almost kind of sad,” says Dani. She leans forward to fold her arms onto the counter and gives a thoughtful sigh. “Seeing them all go. It’s like watching your own kids get adopted by someone else.”

“Never mind that I’ve just decapitated them—”

Dani tries to shoot her a glare, but it vanishes once her amusement shines through.

Along with the next stream of people flows a little girl and her father. While the father is satisfied with a classic bouquet of roses, he asks the girl to pick something of her own to give to her mother. She approaches Dani for _something pink, something pretty._ Dani kneels to her level and shows her pink carnations, tulips, and lilies. She lets her hold their stems for a closer look and smell the sweetness of their petals, and when the girl tells her, “You’re so pretty too, like all your flowers,” Dani beams.

And she thinks, with brightness flooding her heart, _Okay. This, I can do. For as long as I’m able._

The shop does well for its first month - exceptionally well. They save and reinvest the majority of profit, and the surplus manifests readily. Dani buys Jamie some of the nicest clothes she’s ever owned. The very next day, Dani finds a bottle of perfume gleaming on her nightstand; an expensive fragrance she exhausted shortly after leaving Bly and never managed to replenish. She vividly remembers applying some at five in the morning on the day Jamie returned to the manor after a week away, hoping she’d notice. Dani supposes she had. 

There’s a shift in their relationship. A good one. The prevalence of _you_ and _my_ is diminishing at the dawning age of _us_ and _our._ Dani often forgets who any given pair of socks belongs to, or whose shampoo she’s using, or whose money funds the week’s groceries. She can’t say whether the course of things is spontaneous or orchestrated by an insatiable desire to be closer to one another, so close they can no longer tell where one ends and the next begins. Perhaps it’s both, working in tandem. 

The entire season of spring is rosy with delight. Dani hones her arranging skills, serves an endless tide of customers, and peeks into their baby showers, dates, marriages, and funerals. Postcards from Henry and the kids trickle in, chronicling periodic vacations through North America. Owen calls now and again to ruin their days with anecdotes ending in foul puns. A new neighbor moves into the apartment next door: a meek, polite young man called Harvey, who’s landed a good job in the area and promotes cautious optimism for the future.

Lazy weekend afternoons are frequently spent with her arms around Jamie’s neck, feeling warm sun grazing her face as they kiss until her lips hurt. Nights host old movies, novels, and comfortable silence; occasionally derailing before midnight at the bidding of wandering hands. Mornings, however, are Dani’s _favorite_. She revels in the gift - the gentle promise - inherent in the first light. Jamie dozes at her side and Dani is elated to seize another day with her. 

A new intensity grows. Something’s bottling up between them, straining under pressure, but it’s not malignant. Dani knows precisely what it is yet won’t speak it aloud, because she doesn’t want to rush something they both fear diving into when their prior lives have been hell-bent on debunking the existence of a substance that tender and enduring. 

So it strains. The uncertainty winds them up, pulls them taut. 

It starts as a joke, as many things do, when they’re in bed one evening. It’s a nervous laugh, a curiosity, a light test of trust. But it’s also a dip past the surface, a glimpse into depths that can either preserve or break them.

A furious blush erupts on Dani’s cheeks as Jamie slides her hands into the back of her skirt’s waistband to give her rear a generous squeeze and pull them closer. Lips trail down the column of her neck and Dani drags her fingernails down Jamie’s back, seeking purchase. 

Unexpectedly, Jamie draws back to press a kiss to the side of Dani’s jaw and lingers a moment, thinking. “Do you ever get bored of it being like this? I mean, I’m not. Just wondering if you are.”

Dani furrows her brow in mild vexation, partly for the strange question and partly for stopping. “Bored of what?” Her tone is tighter than she intends. 

Jamie rests her head alongside Dani’s on the pillow. Dani can tell by her line of sight that she’s admiring the blush staining her skin. “Oh, you know… Do you ever think about getting a little… unruly?”

Impatience compels Dani to speak bluntly. “Like what? Do you want to hit me?”

“Jesus,” Jamie breathes. “No, I don’t want to _hit_ you. Wait— Is that what you’re into?”

It’s a joke. It’s all supposed to start a joke and _stay_ a joke. And it does, for a while. But when Dani’s lying prone, enjoying Jamie digging her thumbs into her hips as she kisses and bites her way down her spine, a tiny point of no return slips by. Jamie runs her fingers up the side of her neck, weaves them into her hair, and _grips._ It’s abrupt and jarring, and with Jamie’s knee pressed firmly between her legs, Dani can’t contain a delicate sound, pitched high and straddling a sigh and a whine. Jamie tests the waters again and Dani frets deliciously beneath her.

They get carried away. Jamie quietly asks if she wants her hair pulled. The question is posed like a careful secret where surreptitious frustration threads through desire, and Dani, so ready and wound up from teasing and completely caught up in the moment, responds affirmatively. 

Jamie briefly pins Dani’s wrists down at her sides, bids her to keep them there, and relocates a hand to angle it between them where it’s carried on the steady, assertive force of her thigh urging forward from behind. Without delay, the fingers of her free hand bury themselves in long blonde locks and close into a fist. 

Dani helplessly squeezes her thighs around Jamie’s as she’s pushed farther out, _so_ far out she scarcely recognizes her own voice climbing, faltering, and breaking around the sounds escaping her in time with the rhythmic creak of the mattress. She curls her fingers against the sheets at well-timed tugs of her hair; the ones that make her gasp, the ones so sweet she forgets their dull throb. Tears well in the corners of her eyes and she prays Jamie doesn’t notice, because knowing her, she’d stop in a heartbeat to reassess the limits of the situation. 

Dani _cannot_ abide that interruption. Not now, not while the peak she chases keeps rising higher and higher, infinitely just out of reach, until she’s finally _there_ and suddenly nowhere at all—

They don’t talk about it, nor do they talk about that _other_ thing.

The next morning is a quiet Saturday. Dani lounges on the sofa, casually invested in another floriography book when Jamie returns with yesterday’s mail. Her key sticks in the lock and she’s forced to fiddle it out. Without looking up, Dani asks, “Anything interesting?”

Jamie doesn’t immediately answer. She approaches on slow steps, idly slapping the stack of letters against the palm of her opposite hand. By the time Jamie stops in front of Dani with the coffee table between them, Dani has lifted her gaze to find her pensively staring into space. 

“So.” Jamie’s eyes are still trained on a distant, inconsequential spot on the far wall. “Ran into the new neighbor. Happened to be getting the post at the same time.”

“Harvey?”

Jamie issues a single nod. “Yep.” 

“I met him last week,” Dani volunteers. “In the elevator, when we were both heading up. He seems nice.”

An indecipherable expression crosses Jamie’s features as she purses her lips and shifts the weight of her stance. “He seemed weirdly surprised to see me opening the box next to his. So he introduces himself, but then he gets quiet. Asks me if I’ve got more than one roommate. It’s not his business, but I say no. It’s just the one. Then he goes beet red. Won’t look me in the eye after that.”

Dani doesn’t follow the purpose of Jamie’s recounting, at first. But when it hits her, she pales and utters a hushed, “Oh.”

Jamie grimly concurs and raises the volume of her voice to a less conspiratorial level. “Could be worse. A bloke like him? Harmless.” She trails off for a moment. “Could be worse. Much worse. And now I’m wondering if we’re not being as discreet as we should be.”

“Okay,” Dani breathes. “Okay.” After sitting upright, she shuts her book, sets it aside, and holds her arms loosely about herself. “So, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to stop sleeping with you?”

At last, Jamie faces her. “We could not make a show of it, to start.”

“Well, you _were_ the one who started—”

“Ah,” Jamie interrupts, raising her chin. “Don’t even try. You encouraged me the whole way.”

Dani concedes the point, but circles back around. “Still, this happens to other people all the time. I don’t see why I can’t do what I want in my own—”

“Because we aren’t _other people_ , Dani. I’m sorry, but we’re not. Sometimes, that’s just how it is. You choose your company wisely and you pack it in when you’re outnumbered. It’s not defeat. It’s survival. It’s peace of mind.”

“It’s not peace of mind if I’m being cornered into it by fear.”

“Fine,” says Jamie. “It’s just survival then.” She dedicates her attention to the stack of mail and starts flipping through it while retreating to the kitchen. “I care about you, Dani. So much. I like seeing you happy, but I also like seeing you safe. Minding the thin walls isn’t too great a sacrifice for us, is it?”

Her answer is a clipped, “No. It’s not. You’re right.”

Upon reflection, Dani can’t understand why she made a larger issue of it than warranted. _Other people_ mind their thin walls all the time for common decency, and being held to the same standard shouldn’t raise any objections. Dani shuts her eyes and exhales inaudibly when a light of realization flickers on: the issue isn’t about being heard in one sense as much as it is in another. She’s venting in the wrong venue.

It’s that _thing_ they’re so uniquely ill-equipped to dabble in again after so much hurt. That illusory, exotic _thing_ that’ll slip through their fingers like gunpowder and violently combust if it isn’t real, if it isn’t true, if it’s anything less than utterly selfless. 

They’re not ready. It waits restlessly in their hearts, aching for a voice - any voice - to be realized upon. But they’re not ready. _It’s_ not ready. It’s a nascent bud on a branch, dreaming of waking. 

Dani emerges from rumination to catch Jamie staring at a specific mail item, her expression stalled at the crossroads of disquiet and confoundment. Everything else has been cast aside on the dining table.

“What is it?” Dani asks.

“It’s—” Jamie orients the sealed envelope in Dani’s direction to present the sender’s address. At their distance, however, Dani can’t make out the print. “It’s from Mikey. _Mikey_ sent me something.”

Dani rises from the sofa to see for herself. The sender’s name reads _Michael,_ but he shares his last name with Jamie and the postage marks are distinctly English. To banish any lingering doubt, Jamie opens the envelope and extracts a hand-written letter.

Mikey found her through the Wingraves. It wasn’t an easy task. It involved weeks of scouring public records, being rerouted through dodgy contacts and even the penal system, until he uncovered a previous address in Bly and along with it, a landlord’s testimony that she’d been employed at the manor before departing for America some months ago. Bly Manor, emptied of permanent occupants but still managed by the Wingrave estate, constituted the final link in his search. 

His motivation for contacting her is simple, wonderful news. Mikey’s getting married in Bristol on the first day of June and wants his estranged siblings reunited for the wedding. It might turn out to be a very bad idea, he writes, but he wants to try if they’re open to it. While Denny was far easier to track down, he has yet to reply over the course of a month and may never reply at all. 

That leaves Jamie, the older sister who persists in Mikey's memory as a faceless mass of feeling and vague sense of presence. He wants to know her face again. He wants to meet the sister who stayed with him when no else would. He wants to see the person she’s become. 

Mikey has also enclosed a formal wedding invitation and a photograph of him and his fiancée posed in front of a stone fountain, holding their arms around each other’s waists. 

“They look criminally happy,” Jamie remarks, her voice wavering with suppressed emotion as she passes the photo to Dani. 

Dani examines Mikey’s face. He has the same thin brow as Jamie, and his hair likewise mirrors her unruly waves that curl upon caprice. Before moving on to study Mikey’s bride-to-be, Dani hesitates at a fine detail: his hairline suffers a drastic indent above his left temple where a patch of pale, unevenly-textured skin stretches all the way to his ear and truncates his eyebrow.

Jamie skims the wedding invitation a second time, saying, “It’s been, what? Twenty years? Fucking hell. I can’t believe he found me.”

“Are you glad he did?” Dani asks. 

“Yeah, I am. I think so. But what do I do? After so long, what do I do? I suppose I should write back, but what do I say? Should I go? What if Denny’s there being an absolute _git_ like how I remember him—”

Dani lays a hand on her arm. “Easy. One thing at a time. Like how you always say.”

“Right,” Jamie nods. “Right. It’s a lot to take in, is all.”

They have a seat together at the dining table, bringing Mikey’s letter with them. Dani makes tea - or tries to, at least - in mismatched mugs and sips hers while Jamie’s sits untouched, cooling as she voices her process of response. 

“We’re strangers now,” says Jamie. “I don’t know who Mikey is. He could be anyone. He could be great, or he could be awful. And what if Denny’s a darling, and I’m the terror of the bunch? What if _I’m_ the one they keep an eye on at reception? As far as I know, I’m the only one who’s been in… you know, _trouble._ ”

Dani states the obvious, “Well, you’ll never know if you don’t give it a chance.”

Jamie braves a taste of the tea Dani brewed and only adopts a minor wince - a modest success. Upon recovery, she says, “I’d have to get them a gift. Yet another complete shot in the dark. Can never have too many dinnerware sets, I guess. Yeah… I don’t think I can go through with this.” 

When Jamie lifts her mug for another drink, Dani can’t tell if she aims to comfort or punish herself. 

“You want to know what I think?” Dani intimates the distance between them by folding her arms onto the table and leaning in. “I’d think they’d be really proud of you. Even knowing what you’ve been through. Henry Wingrave hired you - that’s a heck of a reference already. And _now_ … you’re a business owner. If that doesn’t impress them, well, I don’t know what will. And their opinions won’t mean a thing.”

The faintest perceivable smile appears on Jamie’s lips, but it’s rueful. “You’re right. Doesn’t make going any easier, unfortunately.”

“Would it help if I went with you?”

Jamie temporarily withdraws into thought. “It would,” she confesses. “It would help a lot, actually. But when the time comes for introductions…” She looks at Dani, brow raised with insinuation. “Things could get uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be right, throwing you into the fire like that.”

“I could go as your friend,” Dani offers. “But then again, that would probably undermine the point of going at all.”

“How do you figure?”

“You haven’t seen your brothers in decades. You said it yourself - you’re strangers. You have to start all over. And if you’re starting over, I don’t think pretending to be someone else bodes well for the future. It could cause you a lot of pain. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”

“So, what? I should just lay everything out on the table, as it is?”

“More like… if someone asks, you tell the truth. And you stand by it.”

Jamie tilts her head and poses a goring question. “What _is_ the truth?”

Dani unfolds her arms and uses her mug to efface her reaction. She was hoping Jamie had her own answer to that, because the responsibility of imposing definitions onto their relationship feels too vast, too daunting, for Dani to bear alone. 

As per usual, Dani is not alone. Not for a second. 

“Are you a friend?” Jamie softly inquires.

Dani gives a diminutive nod. They _are_ friends, after all. They are friends _first_ \- that is the foundation upon which all else rests.

“Are you a partner?”

That, too, holds truth. They _are_ partners. In business, in bed, and in everyday life. 

“Are you… a significant other?”

This one makes Dani feel warm in more ways than she can account for. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to hide a guilty, telling smile, but Jamie notices. Jamie reciprocates her inhibited mirth, grasps Dani’s hand, and strokes a thumb over her knuckles. 

“Are we dating, then? Are we calling it that now?”

“Yeah,” Dani answers, hardly exceeding a whisper. “Yeah, I’d… I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

“Okay,” says Jamie, visibly pleased. “It’s settled then.” She fondles Dani’s hand with precious, innocent glee. “Although, I feel a bit stupid now. I just got done saying how we need to be more discreet. Not an hour later I’m plotting to scare everyone off at my brother’s wedding. I’m really eating those words, aren’t I?”

“A little bit,” Dani agrees with a laugh. 

It’s silly, after all these months. Here they sit, sharing an apartment, a bed, and virtually everything else, and yet the whole world stops for a declaration of commitment as if it weren’t already implicitly known. It equally amuses and pains Dani, how they’re doing everything out of order, how proof of affection immensely outpaces recognition thereof. 

It certainly complicates things. But given how their individual conceptions of relationships are so brutally damaged and riddled with trauma, Dani supposes it’s remarkable that they’ve reached this milestone at all. Their faith in each other is restoring their faith in convention, in words and titles that have long been abused. 

They’re not ready. But someday, Dani knows they will be. 

She only has to hope she’ll be around long enough to see it.


	3. Chapter 3

**vi. (an eventuality)**

“Dani? Help me choose?”

“Okay,” she replies. “In a minute.” 

Dani stands before the hotel bathroom’s mirror, adjusting her hair. She nearly has it _just_ right: properly voluminous, sweeping exactly as it should, to where she pins it back. 

In the end, Jamie comes to her. She meets Dani in the mirror’s reflection and alternates between holding up two different earrings to her earlobe. The first dangles, set with emerald stones of dubious authenticity. The second is a silvery hoop, elegant in its simplicity and a worthy complement for the herringbone chain nigh inseparable from her neck.

Dani forgets the dilemma to admire the rich, dark green velvet of Jamie’s dress. It broods under light and shadow, speaks a dusky love to the skin of her hands whenever she steals a glancing touch. Surely this material was invented solely in anticipation of Jamie, she thinks. It holds her as well as Dani dares to. 

When Jamie smirks at Dani’s obvious preoccupation, a snap judgement is made. Dani chooses the hoops on impulse and catastrophically fails at pretending she wasn’t staring elsewhere. Despite that she’s allowed to stare - in fact, encouraged to on many occasions - old habits die hard, and Dani is still apt to fluster. 

Jamie wears the hoops. It’s her turn to watch Dani as she finishes her hair, and the attention sends a demure smile wrestling its way to her lips. 

“You look,” says Jamie, her voice low with absolute conviction, “really _fucking_ good.”

Her compliment erodes what little Dani retains of her composure. She laughs as her mood harmonizes with the luscious floral motif playing across her pastel-peach wrap dress, completing the ensemble. 

Dani seeks a kiss, taking care not to collide overmuch in the interest of preserving their appearances. But temptation isn’t so easy to shirk, not while Jamie looks like _that_. As soon as they part Dani carelessly cants her head at an inciting angle and leans in again. 

“Oi— Take it easy.” Jamie gently breaks them apart and lifts a thumb to wipe the corner of Dani’s mouth, where she’s left a smudge of brick-red lipstick. “Unless you _want_ to be wearing the same shade before the ceremony even starts.”

“How are you feeling?” Dani asks in earnest concern. She remains compliant for Jamie while she tidies her up. 

The question gives Jamie pause. Her hands stall against the sides of Dani’s face before dropping to her upper arms. “A bit like my insides are being run through a meat mincer,” she decides as a vague wince ghosts across her features. 

“Yeah,” says Dani. “I know the feeling. Want to know what might help?”

“Potentially fatal amounts of alcohol?”

“Well, aside from that.”

Jamie shrugs. “Sure. Got nothing to lose.”

Dani tells her to close her eyes. She receives a suspicious look, but Jamie humors her. 

“Now just breathe,” Dani advises. “That’s it. That’s all you have to do - get through the next minute. It doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes… it’s the hardest part.”

Dani is no stranger to the pitfalls of anxiety. Although Jamie has never been susceptible to any of its various associated episodes, Dani trusts in the universality of the few strategies she implements to mitigate the worst spells. They certainly can’t hurt. 

When Jamie’s squared shoulders go lax, and the muscle of her tensed jaw attenuates at her temple, Dani recalls all the times Jamie was there for her, ready to catch her the moment she started falling, and supposes she can do the same in return. 

They arrive shortly before sunset. The late-spring weather treats them fairly, only warranting light jackets as the night deepens.

While the location of the wedding had been shared with Dani on several instances, it never quite sunk in that they’d be gathering at an actual _castle_. Jamie is quick to clarify that it’s technically a country house like Bly Manor, not precisely a castle in the traditional fortified sense, but all Dani can see is an ornate stone facade, incredible age, and impeccably manicured grounds. As far as Dani knows, there are no true American castles; only imitations and homages. If _this_ isn’t a castle, then the bar is set absurdly high. 

After the ushers greet and direct them to the back lawn, Jamie stops so suddenly that Dani nearly crashes into her. 

“Whoa! What’s wrong?”

Jamie is staring at the other guests seating themselves in rows upon rows of white chairs under a lit canopy. She muses aloud in wonder, “Look at all these _people_. Mikey has so many _people_.”

They find their seats among the central rows, behind close friends and family but preceding honored acquaintances. Mikey’s had them specifically reserved for Jamie and her plus one since receiving her written confirmation of attendance. 

Jamie recently confided in Dani her regret for not writing more when she had the opportunity. At the time, she had opted not to share any nonessential details of her life or her degree of emotional investment in the situation. If she had, she would’ve been able to remedy any unfortunate misconceptions Mikey might carry into their meeting.

Dani, wonderfully accustomed to Jamie’s vulnerability, had almost completely forgotten her well-guarded disposition toward other people.

As the congregation settles in preparation, Dani notices Jamie’s newfound compulsion to regularly glance about the attendees in search of something. Or someone. When questioned, she confesses she’s looking for Denny. 

“Do you even know what he looks like these days?” Dani asks.

Jamie faces forward after stealing yet another glance over her shoulder. “I’ll know,” she assures her. There isn’t a trace of doubt in her words. “I’ll know when I see him. _If_ I see him.”

But Denny is nowhere to be found. 

The vows are exchanged when the sun sits languidly on the horizon, trailed by a broad curtain of pink and purple sky. Mikey’s attention is rightfully fixed upon his bride, Elaine, the entire time. She’s lovely. Tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with a bright smile that reaches them even at their distance. Dani peeks at Jamie to find her expression firm and her eyes reddening. She recognizes that resolution, that defiance. Her tremendous will to _feel_ , but not convey. 

Dani offers no words, for there are none. Instead, she brushes her hand where it hangs between their seats and extends a clandestine pinky finger, which Jamie tightly takes hold of with her own. 

Under normal conditions, Dani prefers not to contemplate weddings, much less experience them. The memory of her own engagement always sends a shiver slithering through her spine before coiling in her stomach like nausea, but right now she’s miraculously at ease, because the couple in this one are doing it _right_. Both parties are enthusiastic participants and positively radiant with joy - a far cry from the vacant stare Dani once emitted at her rehearsal dinner. 

Dani wonders if she’ll ever marry, or whether it’s a possibility anymore. Officially, it would not be a legal marriage. On a personal level, she isn’t sure if she’d even want it. Marriage remains a spring-loaded bear trap in the context of her life and she can’t imagine that blemish fading, not when it marks her so indelibly now. 

It’s entirely unsurprising that her mind defaults to Jamie as the most feasible candidate for such an arrangement, if it should ever come to pass. Her relationship with Jamie may very well be her last, and while that itself does not constitute an adequate reason for marriage, it may eventually mandate a decision - one Dani isn’t sure they have the capacity to make. Even now, as they accelerate toward a year together, she still doesn’t know if Jamie loves her. 

Well, of course she _loves_ her. They’ve loved each other since Bly. However, their love has matured on a gradient spread over time, embodying infinite forms for infinitely variegated moments. How is one to know where each distinct form occurs? How is one to know when it needs to live in words or vows? Is the love Dani felt for Jamie as she poured her heart out on that rainy night somehow inferior to the love she feels for her now, or tomorrow?

If that does not suffice, Dani can’t fathom what would.

At the ceremony’s conclusion, the guests migrate to a covered patio at the center of the gardens where reception awaits them. Mikey stands to toast before dinner and Dani reflects Jamie’s surprise. He doesn’t share her regional accent. At all. Evidently, Mikey was raised somewhere _far_ more southern than his birthplace. 

From his toast, Dani gleans that Mikey was fostered by a principled family since the age of four. They are his parents and siblings bound by love, not blood. They gave him a wonderful childhood, nurtured his passions, and ensured he became a man worthy of his bride. 

Seated beside her, Jamie starts downing a flute of champagne. 

Fifteen minutes pass from the start of dinner. Neither eat. They’re patiently awaiting a break in the constant stream of guests visiting the wedded couple to express their congratulations. The opportunity inevitably arrives and Jamie wastes no time seizing it. Following a discreet squeeze of Dani’s hand, she kills the rest of her drink, rises, and ventures over to Mikey’s table. 

Dani watches, unconsciously clutching the hem of the tablecloth in anticipation as Jamie steps forward to make herself known. She can pinpoint the instant Mikey realizes who she is by the way his expression plummets, then brightens to unprecedented luminosity. He stands. There’s a moment of palpable shock and disbelief. It ends upon Mikey drawing her into a joyful embrace. 

When Dani sees Jamie smiling broadly and dabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand, her heart aches in gleeful sympathy. They insist that Jamie sit with them, and she does. Words are exchanged for a solid minute before Dani sees Jamie kindly looking in her direction, leading Mikey and Elaine to the same location. The couple excitedly motion her over and Dani is happy to oblige. 

She settles into the open chair beside Jamie’s and shakes Mikey and Elaine’s hands as they’re extended to her. 

“As I’m sure you’re aware by this point,” Jamie says to her, “Dani, this is my brother Mikey and his wife, Elaine. And, you two, this is Dani Clayton.”

“My name’s technically Danielle,” Dani tells them, “but Dani is perfect. I’m so glad to meet you. You make such a lovely couple and - just _wow_ \- your wedding has been _beautiful_.”

“Thank you,” says Mikey, on the verge of a laugh. “I see Jamie wasn’t joking. You really are American. She says you’re business partners out in New England?”

Dani’s smile falters, but she doesn’t let it fall. Rather, she turns to assess Jamie’s reaction and finds her subtly withdrawing from the silent question inherent in her gaze.

“Is that what she said?” Understanding, as well as disappointment, involuntarily seeps into Dani’s voice. It’s undetectable by new acquaintances unfamiliar with her pattern of speech, but plain as day to those who know her. “Yes. We’re in Vermont. We’re florists.”

Elaine remarks, “That sounds idyllic. Tell me - I’m curious - how’d you cross paths, originally? Was Jamie in America or was Dani over here?”

“We both worked at the manor in Bly,” Jamie supplies. “I was the gardener. Dani filled the position of au pair for the kids living there. Then the family left, and they hadn’t need for us anymore. I decided some new scenery was in order. As for Dani…”

“A new line of work, for me,” she finishes. “A fresh start. America happened to be the logical conclusion.”

They eat together and sustain an hour of conversation. Dani grows fond of the couple. Elaine is perceptive, shrewd, yet ultimately kind. Mikey is naturally well-spoken like Jamie, and commands a similar wit supplemented by formal education. He’s taller than she expected, his hair is noticeably lighter than Jamie’s, and he’s of sturdier build. He’s an accountant for a lucrative construction company and doing quite well for himself. 

The sheer disparity in quality of life between brother and sister, extending from their separation, is a constant threat to the evenness of their discussion. While Jamie glosses over her abysmal experiences with multiple fosters, Mikey reports undergoing one transfer at such a young age he can’t remember it. While Jamie struggled to hold down a job upon coming of age and resorted to petty theft among other misconduct, Mikey lived easy at home, worked part-time, and enjoyed the camaraderie of his college friends. While Jamie served prison time, Mikey attended university and achieved laudable marks. 

Jamie is relieved to see Mikey relatively unscathed by the world’s cruelty, but Dani can detect her own private grief as she’s confronted by what could have been hers too, had she not slipped through the cracks of society as a result of one wrong turn after another.

They disband at the first dance. Dani drinks more than she means to and Jamie is one glass behind. Both have their demons to drown tonight, some of which considerably overlap.

While they’re sitting alone at their table, spectating guests emerging onto the magenta-lit patio once the music selection draws from popular British and American dance tracks, Jamie lights a cigarette and Dani indulges in another glass of champagne. Her head starts to pleasantly swim. 

Dani wonders if dancing might resuscitate the rapidly declining mood. She looks at Jamie, studying the shallow line of discontent in her brow until she notices and returns her stare. Once Dani has her attention, she utilizes her most appealing tone when imploring her, “Jamie…” with her head tilted in the direction of the dance floor. 

At the very least she’s managed to make Jamie crack a smile, albeit a sardonic one. “Sorry, Poppins. I don’t think so.”

“Please?” Dani draws closer, laying a hand near Jamie’s where it rests on the table.

“Dani, have you ever seen me dance before?”

Dani comes up empty-handed until she recalls a singular instance. “Valentine’s Day. Remember?”

Jamie expels a wry breath and reluctantly addresses the memory. “I was drunk out of my bloody mind and I hadn’t heard that song since I was a kid. It hardly counts.”

“You _loved_ it.”

“I got sick later on. Remember that? Ruined the whole night.”

Dani rolls her eyes dramatically. “Yeah, well, there’s bound to be casualties every now and then. Look, Jamie. If you don’t dance with me…” She looks around the patio until she singles out, at random, a lone woman with short black hair sitting on a stone barrier, nodding her head in time with the music. “I’m gonna go over there and ask her instead. And you’ll be sitting here all alone, _completely_ jealous.”

Jamie casts her a doubtful look. “How much have _you_ had to drink?”

“Enough,” Dani replies, then laughs at her own cleverness.

Jamie isn’t taking her threat seriously, but she really ought to, because Dani didn’t spend two hours refining her appearance for the wedding just to look mundane. Indeed, she’s been collecting obvious glances and double-takes all evening. She’ll find a willing dance partner easily. Brimming with resolve, Dani stands up from her chair, peers down at Jamie with phenomenal self-assurance, and makes her way over to the woman previously designated. 

It’s more a stunt to rile Jamie out of moodiness than anything else, so when Dani receives a _yes_ on her first attempt, she barely knows what to do with it. On automation she and the woman dissolve into the crowd and adopt a suitable rhythm for the American freestyle hit playing. Dani can’t tell - and can’t care, for that matter - whether moderate inebriation has made her steps clumsy. She’s too giddy with confidence. Dani glimpses Jamie smoking at their table and sees an amused smile insisting too heavily upon her lips to give way to disapproval.

The woman leans in near the side of Dani’s head so she can hear her over the music. “Where are you from? America, right? I couldn’t quite place your accent beyond that.”

“Iowa,” Dani projects in reply. 

“Don’t know what that is,” she says, “but I’ll take your word for it. So are you with Elaine? Or are you one of Mikey’s lot?”

Without consideration, Dani answers, “I’m dating his sister.”

The woman’s eyebrows dart upward in surprise. She hesitates to respond, likely suspecting she’s misheard. 

Dani shuts her eyes for a second of self-reprimand when she realizes her mistake. “Oh _goddamn_ _it_ ,” she says. “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Please, can you do me a big favor and not tell anyone I told you that?”

“Not a problem. Between you and me, I’ve known you a minute and I wish my friends were half as wild as you are.”

They dance the length of two more songs before Dani catches sight of a man loitering on the outskirts of the patio. He’s statuesque and unsmiling as he scans the myriad faces of partygoers. Inexplicably, Dani finds herself looking again shortly after facing away. There’s a quality to his features that’s comfortably familiar, as though Dani had once known and forgotten him. After several minutes, the man appears to have found who he was searching for. Out of curiosity, Dani traces his gaze to a specific table. 

_Their_ table.

Jamie is standing, returning the man’s stare with such staunch focus it evokes a deer caught in headlights, if that deer hadn’t a fearful bone in its body and intended to fight the oncoming car head-on. 

Sensing trouble, Dani excuses herself from the dance floor and returns to Jamie, who doesn’t need to say a word to communicate the situation. 

It’s Denny. 

The siblings have their time alone. Denny, who largely goes by Dennis now, has already spoken to and made amends with Mikey. Now he and Jamie must reconcile. Or attempt to. They retreat to the far end of the lawn where light shed by the party wanes, and talk. 

Dani is left alone before Mikey extends his company. They stroll through the ground floor of the country house, which hasn’t been inhabited for decades, only refurbished and rented to private occasions such as this one. Mikey is forthcoming with his intentions of learning more about Jamie from a third party; someone close, who will not occlude inconvenient truth with palatable falsehoods. 

She voices her doubt in her ability to faithfully provide this perspective. Dani will not speak ill of Jamie. Mikey assures her that isn’t his aim. He’s merely interested in what _is_ , not anyone’s interpretation thereof. 

“So she gardens?” Mikey asks. “And she’s quite adept at it? I can’t imagine tending a manor’s grounds all by myself. Seems a monumental task.”

“Yeah,” Dani says. “I remember her working all day, most days. Sunrise to sunset. But she loves it - _so_ much. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t grow, as long as she has everything she needs to do it.”

They wander up the main staircase in the foyer, coming to a stop at the first landing. 

“And she hasn’t had any further trouble with the law since her last stint? As far as you know?” Mikey ascends a few more steps to fold his arms over the railing and look down at the glossy parquet floor. 

“What? Oh, no. No, Jamie’s left that all behind. She’s doing really well. I mean, even back when I first met her I had no idea until she told me.”

“That’s good.” He sounds relieved. “Very good. I only ask because, well, statistically speaking one incarceration often leads to another. I’m glad she’s managed to avoid that, given the circumstances of her life. It hurts, hearing her tell it. One long chain of unrelenting hardship. And I’m sure there’s much more she won’t say.”

Dani joins him at the railing. “Do you think she and Denny will be okay?”

Mikey draws a thoughtful breath. “I don’t know, to be honest. They were old enough to remember everything. All I know is that my wonderful visage is the way it is because there wasn’t a parent in sight. It’s not Jamie’s fault, or Denny’s fault. I don’t have animosity toward either of them. As for those two, however… blood was already boiling at that tender age, the way I hear it.”

She solemnly nods. 

“I meant to thank you, as well,” says Mikey, meeting Dani’s gaze. “For caring for her. Maybe it’s inappropriate of me to presume, but I think I know something Jamie prefers me not to at this point in time.”

“I, uh.” A nervous laugh flees Dani of its own accord. “I really don’t think it’s my place to say anything about that.”

He flashes a guilty grin. “Elaine pointed it out to me. She said to me, ‘Have a look at them. I think there’s something there’. Now, I’m as dense as stone. I don’t see anything until she convinces me. She said, _‘_ Watch how Jamie looks at her. That’s how you look at me. It’s the same look’. Is it true?”

Dani wishes she weren’t in the process of sobering, if only to make the topic easier to navigate. At this rate of compromise, she thinks, half the wedding attendees will know by midnight. “She’s, um. She’s not ready to tell you yet. I thought she was _going_ to, but…”

“You know,” Mikey says, “the way I see it, she doesn’t owe me or the world anything.”

Mikey’s about to head back to rendezvous with his wife when one of his ushers accosts them. Apparently, there’s some kind of commotion outside the east wing of the house. Normally they would’ve handled it without issue, but this is a special situation they felt proper escalating to Mikey himself. It’s his brother and sister. The blood-related ones, not his adoptive siblings.

With utmost haste they rush along a straight path through the halls until they reach the easternmost exit and emerge onto a stone landing. Its stairs lead down to a gravel road wrapping around the building where Jamie and Denny stand, cloaked in indigo night, screaming at each other. 

“You should’ve helped me!” Jamie shouts. “You were older! You were bigger! You could see over the _fucking_ stovetop!”

Denny ripostes, “You don’t think I suffered? You want to see how that man used me as his personal ashtray for three years? You want to see the scars? I suffered too, but at least I didn’t end up in fucking prison! That’s on _you_ , Jamie. You can’t blame me for the way you screwed up your life, because _you_ did that yourself!”

The instant Jamie lunges forward, Mikey intercepts them. His usher presses a firm hand into Denny’s shoulder and shoves him back when he tries to meet Jamie’s affront, while Dani grabs her arm and clambers to reinforce her hold before Jamie can twist free. 

“You look just like her, you know that?” Denny hisses. “The whore? If you want to blame someone, blame her. Find her in a mirror.”

Mikey tells him to shut up, but the damage is done. Jamie struggles anew against Dani’s grip and swears at Denny, “I’ll fucking kill you,” with startling lethality. She’s as stiff as a board. Every muscle tenses in fury.

“ _Jamie_ ,” Dani pleads. “Jamie, _stop_.” 

She stops. It’s a gradual process involving several deep breaths and the stubborn maintenance of a glower. Enervated by defeat, Jamie suddenly feels so small and weak in Dani’s arms.

The night is forfeit. Their goodbyes are melancholy, as is the journey back to the hotel. Jamie battles tears the whole way. She won’t see her brothers again tomorrow. Denny is home-bound, Mikey is disembarking for his honeymoon, and a flight awaits her and Dani in the morning. And there’s a sign on the front door of The Leafling reading _On Holiday_ that needs to be removed. 

The window of reunion, reconciliation, and forgiveness has passed. Jamie is thoroughly convinced she’ll never see them again. 

The two shed their outfits, makeup, and jewelry without any collaborative effort, as they once earlier looked forward to. Dani is sitting in the bed, propped up on stacked pillows, when Jamie rests her head on her shoulder and speaks for the first time in an hour. 

“He’s exactly how I remember him. Denny. He’s got a wife and two kids now, but he’s the same. I still want to strangle him. But that wouldn’t change the fact that everything he said today - everything he said about _me_ \- was right.”

At the stiff undercurrent of pain running through her voice, Dani drapes a consoling arm around her.

“I’m the fuck-up,” Jamie continues. “I’m the mental one.”

Sorrow tugs at Dani’s heart and destabilizes her voice when she responds, “You can’t think of yourself that way. So what if you made mistakes in the past? Are you not allowed to recover from them?”

“That’s the thing. I haven’t. I think I have. I go months or years _thinking_ I have, but it just… comes right back. The hurt, you know? The anger. Reaches out of a fucking grave and pulls me back down with it.”

Dani hears her quietly snivel. Jamie has spent the entire day fighting urges to weep, and when the fatigue finally overwhelms her, she’s nearly silent. Only the occasional shaky breath suggests her current state. She finds Jamie’s hand with her spare one, grasps it, and securely laces their fingers together. Dani can do nothing more but hold her and press an intuitive kiss to the top of her head. The collar of her nightshirt transfers a dampness to her skin.

“I’m sorry for being a coward,” Jamie tells her. “I know I upset you.”

“You didn’t,” Dani asserts. “You shouldn’t have to say or do anything if you’re not ready. I just thought you’d want to.”

“I did want to. But I couldn’t. And you don’t have to pretend you weren’t disappointed. I _know_ you, Dani. I could see it. I could hear it. You’re not admonishing me about it, but you felt it. You are the _last_ person I want to disappoint.”

Dani allows Jamie to breathe and settle down following an audible climb in distress. 

She warned her about this months ago. Jamie will exhaust her. They will exhaust _each other._ They are terribly wounded people dragging tattered pasts behind them, and they _will_ pose burdens going forward. 

And yet, that never deterred Dani. Not then, and not now.

In a brave attempt at levity, she lowers her lips to Jamie’s head and speaks against her hair, “Jamie, I really hope you’re not talking about the dancing thing. Because that is a total non-issue.”

Dani feels the warm, soothing texture of Jamie’s weak laugh permeating her chest. There an impulse builds, composed of words. She wants to tell Jamie that she loves her. She doesn’t know or care what permutation of love it would disclose, only that it not be interpreted as a request for reciprocation. It is simply a gift - one without condition or possibility of retraction. But the tragedy of language is its ambiguity, its subjectivity. And Dani will not comfort Jamie with anything less than certainties. 

With sleep upon them, Dani softly asks her, “Do you want me to let go? Or do you want me to stay like this?”

Jamie chooses the latter, and so Dani faithfully holds onto her through the night. She can think of no other means through which to accurately convey the variety of love that concerns devotion in the face of hardship and personal failing. The variety that endures their absolute worst days with the unwavering constancy it maintains during their best. The variety that shall, in its consummate form, enclose a world of maladjusted people in the inalienable worthiness of love and renewal.


	4. Chapter 4

**vii. (the art of patience)**

It’s the height of summer. Dani’s twenty-eighth birthday arrives on a Sunday in the middle of August. She and Jamie have a reservation for brunch at a formal restaurant, where bottomless champagne and mimosas find their table on a whim, omelettes made with herbs befitting top sirloin are expected to be consumed with equivalent delicacy, and miniature desserts are crafted like self-contained expressions of art. 

They feel cunning for successfully infiltrating this space meant for people markedly above their economic class, particularly so when Jamie outlines a plan to steal a few attractive cocktail glasses. Dani only suspends her laughter to ensure she’s joking.

Jamie is, of course, joking. Purportedly. 

Before they leave, Jamie presents a hinged box to Dani. Nestled inside is a wristwatch of evident quality and unpresuming glamor; from an oval face bordered in gold, to dual-toned links composing its dainty metal band. It’s already set to the current time, ticking a fragile, mechanical heartbeat against Dani’s fingers. 

Jamie fastens it on her with immense care and speaks so quietly it might articulate a private wish, “May it count more days on your wrist than we could dream to ask for.”

Trusting the other tables to mind their own business, Jamie meets her eyes before kissing the heel of her palm, and Dani wants to cry. 

The space between that day’s conclusion and the start of following one - Monday - is virtually unaccounted for. Jamie is completely dressed for work, leaning over where Dani lies in their unmade bed with her tank top hiked up to her collarbone and her shorts hanging around her knees. Just below the bedsheet’s hem, Jamie’s hand flexes at a leisurely rate. 

Soft keening sounds stumble past Dani’s parted lips. Her hair spills messily over the pillow beneath her head and her fingers claw at any fabric within reach as she endures the agony of Jamie’s entirely unhurried ministrations. She doesn’t understand why she’s torturing her like this. Jamie was so _good_ to her last night, begging the question of what Dani could have done to earn nearly ten minutes on a cruel plateau. 

She whines, squirms. _“Jamie—”_

Jamie hushes her, eyes dark with concentration. “Behave,” she cautions, in one word establishing a particular mood Dani has already inferred. More kindly, she promises, “It’ll be worth it.”

Another excruciating minute passes before Jamie starts touching her _properly._ Reliefalone is nearly enough to precipitate a sudden and irreversible climb, but Jamie eases off in time to deny her resolution. Dismay floods Dani’s heart. When she does it again, Dani fusses in restless need.

Without thinking, she grabs Jamie’s hand and tries to recover what she’s lost, but she twists free and Dani is in an even worse position than before: desperate, empty, and mildly chagrined.

“You,” Jamie utters, having captured both of Dani’s wrists to pin them down at her sides, “need to be patient.”

A feeble argument starts to rise on Dani’s voice when they hear the phone ring, horribly shrill in the context of their intimate exchange. Jamie swears. She shifts herself over to reach for the phone on the nightstand, spares Dani a genuinely apologetic glance, and answers.

Dani, in her overwrought state, feels despair to be the most appropriate reaction for this moment. Even more so when Jamie presses the handset to her shoulder and says, “I have to take this.” 

Her severity suggests this isn’t intentional in the slightest. It’s important business with one of their suppliers. She informs Dani that she’s going to switch to the phone mounted in the kitchenette and asks her to hang up the bedroom one in thirty seconds. She tells her to wait for her. To be patient.

Despair indeed, Dani concludes. She’s alone. The window blinds admit staggered morning light into the room, glowing on mussed sheets and her blushing body. She can hear her wristwatch ticking on the nightstand from where it sits near the phone. Dani counts the seconds it declares and scoots over to hang up the phone when she’s supposed to, but as soon as she settles back down in her former position, the uncomfortable want thrumming through her flesh seems louder than ever. Her mental haze recedes and her arousal starts to feel a little disproportionately obscene. 

She remembers something Jamie told her yesterday, mere minutes before falling into bed with her. 

“I have something more for you,” she said, “but it’s not ready. It will be, though. Soon. It’s not something that can be rushed.”

In the present, Dani hopes with every atom of her being that this situation wasn’t what Jamie had referred to. 

She can still hear her wristwatch ticking. How can anyone stand to wait for anything when time is finite? She’s become so sensitive to its passage. She lives inside an hourglass of indeterminate capacity, while Jamie acts as though there’s no end in sight. 

“Why can’t we plan for tomorrow?” Jamie once said after a glass too many. “Tomorrow’s going to be _today_ , eventually.”

Jamie’s astute observation provides a sound point, but it’s much easier for _her_ to commit to such a mindset. _She’s_ not the one cruising toward oblivion by way of vengeful ghost. _She’s_ not the one roasting in bed right now, unjustly abandoned, while her wristwatch ticks their lives away. 

Dani thinks she’s frustrated with her. That’s what she believes, what she _wants_ to believe, until Jamie’s optimism invokes thoughts of her smile, the security of her hands, the way her voice roughens when she speaks reassurances low and close. She thinks about her pretty neck, how she curls into the kisses Dani decorates her in. She thinks about the shallow lines in her forearms that arise under strain. 

Influenced by her daydreaming, Dani’s hand drifts to her abdomen. Her fingertips descend further, and before she can think better of it, she supplies a surrogate touch where Jamie left her. She replicates the pace, number of digits, and degree of self-denial that smolders so freshly in memory. She won’t achieve the correct posture and position, however - an unfortunate impossibility at her angle. But it’s enough to keep her appetite roused. It’s enough to rekindle the heat in her face and chest.

She manages to stay quiet. There’s less surprise and suspense to weather in solitude. The greatest difficulty, she finds, is restraint. It would be such an easy matter to finish things outright. For several renegade seconds, Dani contemplates doing just that, and she might have, truthfully, if Jamie’s return hadn’t sent her hands darting away from their preoccupation. 

Dani closes her eyes. She can imagine the expression on Jamie’s face and can’t bear to see it. Not five seconds later, Jamie’s weight causes the mattress to dip as she joins her on the bed and whispers accusatorially, “Were you doing what I think you were?” 

She says nothing. She bites her lip, refusing to incriminate herself despite already being caught. Jamie takes hold of her forearms and slides her grip down to her hands, to her fingers, where she confirms her suspicions. The touch is gentle and forgiving, but Jamie’s teasing is conversely ruthless.

“Well,” she says. “In that case, maybe you don’t need me here at all. Seems like you’ve got everything under control.”

Dani opens her eyes to see Jamie hovering closer, chin lifted at an officiating angle as she retains custody of Dani’s hands. “Jamie...”

“What?” She leans in to brush their lips together. “You want me to finish up for you? Hm?”

Before Dani can respond, she kisses her. It’s intolerably chaste. The moment they part, Dani issues a soft, “Mm-hm,” and Jamie needs no further encouragement. 

It’s not unanticipated, the way Jamie torments her with another feint before committing to a true end. By then, she’s made Dani cynical. She braces for another forceful return to shore only to find herself driven into the deep end. It is the surprise - her lack of preparation, how the crest unexpectedly persists and intensifies on a tremendous reserve of preamble - that sabotages Dani’s effort at silence, which she maintains for several commendable seconds before her composure slips. Jamie must swiftly muffle Dani’s exclamation with the back of her knuckles to preserve the peace. 

Once it’s finally, _finally_ over, Dani laments Jamie’s withdrawal and cannot will herself to move. Jamie lazily kisses her face. Her temple, her cheek, her jaw; both sides. The last, she leaves just below her bottom lip and says in parting, “Enjoy your day off. I’ll bring something back this evening.”

She leaves before Dani’s breathing has even settled. Given the current time, it’s somewhat excusable. Dani lies there a while, utterly shipwrecked, wondering how she can enjoy a day spent waiting for Jamie to return.

Time flows on. The day shifts. Dani staggers out of bed, showers under cool water, and diligently dresses herself to an unnecessary degree of propriety for lounging at home. She picks out a cream-colored crepe blouse with modest shoulder padding, and tucks it into the belt of a gray plaid skirt. Next are her gold hoops, expertly coordinated with her wristwatch. And her socks, an approachable tan. 

Dani rifles through the nightstand on Jamie’s side of the bed and steals a cigarette that won’t be missed. She draws the blinds all the way up and opens the window to its maximum extent. Standing there greeted by a tepid breeze, Dani flicks a disposable lighter, once, twice, until its flame takes. She leans on the sill and watches the street. Lets the street watch _her_ , if it wishes. 

She shuts her eyes and ponders the ache in her legs, the irritation of her throat prying a cough, and this is how she spends her day: conducting strange ceremonies and rituals, hoping that by their novelty she will always remember this feeling - this surreal harmony of satisfaction and anticipation - and carry it with her.

More than once, Dani raises her wristwatch to her ear and listens to it whisper. 

It is a wonderful gift. A perfect gift. Not for its function, but for its reminder.

It does not count the seconds that remain. That is not its purpose. Its purpose is spatial, relative. A map of one’s position in a single day, with no meaning assigned to yesterday or tomorrow as the stroke of midnight refreshes each cycle.

But this is not a sad affair. Rather, it is a celebration of temporal freedom, an ode to the moment, the poignant joys of waiting, arriving, leaving; and feeling them collate within her. 

**viii. (the home of always)**

Patience is the virtue that rewards her most.

The moment Jamie places the white sun-shy flower she’s nurtured over months on the counter, Dani knows. She _knows_. She knows in her heart, in her bones, that they’re ready.

It is real. It is true. It will uplift them, grow them, and keep them. 

They’re in the back room together, hidden away in their storage garden of leaves and petals and lamps, when Dani utters those words for the first time in years. Except, this time they’re not sorrowful; not spoken in conciliation, forbearance, or obligation. They don’t sit in her throat like lead.

Her love for Jamie is daybreak. It’s weightless, full of infinite hope and clarity. 

“Of course, Jamie,” she speaks against her cheek at the vaguest hint of question. “Of course I love you. I love you. I love you _so_ much—”

It flows from her like a fountain. She’s loved Jamie for so long she will never be able to say it enough to appease all the lost moments where she did not say it. 

That night, they open their bedroom window and position the flower on the sill. Under pale moonlight, it blooms. It takes hours for its ivory petals to completely unfurl, but Dani observes every second with a devotion suited for witnessing the birth of an entire universe. Here, as she lounges in bed with Jamie’s arm tucked around her waist and their legs entangled beneath the sheets, Dani experiences a contentment so profound and encompassing it threatens to reduce the magnitude of everything that precedes and follows it.

But Dani knows, as surely as she loves her, that she will feel this again many more times as long as Jamie is with her. 

Around midnight, Jamie makes a suggestion.

“Let’s get a bigger place. Something we can grow into. A nicer kitchen, room for a larger bed. A bit closer to the shop.”

Dani hums at the thought. “I’d like that,” she says. “More windows, too. But I’m not sure we have the money for it.”

“We’ll _get_ the money for it,” says Jamie. “This winter, we’ll work harder. _Smarter._ We’ll dress the shop for the holidays and sell poinsettias and wreaths faster than we can restock them. People love that shite.”

As it turns out, Jamie’s instincts are right. The holiday season teems with demand for botanical ornamentation and the uptick in business persists through Valentine’s Day of 1989, when The Leafling exchanges its crimson velvet, holly, and firs for roses, carnations, and reams of bouquet cellophane. They operate in tune with the seasons, and the seasons provide. 

By March, they’re actively browsing apartments. By April, they’ve signed a lease. 

It’s a vastly different experience, Dani finds, furnishing an apartment they’ve affectionately named their home versus a mere refuge for rest and sleep. 

They spend a weekend afternoon shopping for mattresses, lying abreast on showroom beds discussing their firmness preferences while the salesman, mortified from just enough eavesdropping to draw the right conclusions, nonetheless accommodates them pleasantly in the interest of securing a commission. When Jamie finally assembles the bed frame following much procrastination and a variety of distractions, Dani harbors the same admiration in her heart as she would had Jamie built them an entire house. She wants to live in this bed forever.

Dani doesn’t buy an armchair to pair with their sofa because they need one. She buys it because she pictures them living their lives in it. She sees Jamie critiquing American novels and their authors by lamplight, herself sewing patches onto a torn pant leg Jamie incurs from a repeated labor, and house guests settling into their cozy hospitality. 

Dani doesn’t collect eclectic refrigerator magnets, scented candles, and monthly editions of fashion magazines for their utility. She does so because they are pieces of her, rightfully and permanently occupying the same space as pieces of Jamie; her diverse vinyl records, her stash of interesting cosmetic rings, and her family of houseplants waving at them from every light-accessible shelf. 

Everything falls into place. Photographs of them together populate frames on walls and tables. A box full of recipe cards are realized through Jamie’s butchering and Dani’s relative excellence. Things break and Jamie fixes them, or learns _how_ to fix them if she cannot, treating each case as a personal challenge. Dani is their benevolent director of decor, who respects each veto Jamie submits whenever kitsch invades her taste. 

Jamie turns thirty a week before May. To soften the blow, Dani gifts her a pair of quality weather-resistant boots to replace her old worn ones and a metal flip lighter engraved with the phrase: _An eternal flame for my darling sweetheart_. 

The saccharine endearment makes Jamie laugh when she first reads it. It’s clearly meant in lighthearted teasing, but the smile she tries hiding whenever she peeks at it throughout the day reveals truth in plain sight. 

Every morning Dani peers into the mirror and sees herself alone. There is no evidence of anything amiss save for the brown eye on loan to her. One morning she looks harder, stares intensely at her reflection with mere inches between herself and the surface to flush what lurks out of hiding, if only to confirm it still lurks at all.

She doesn’t see or feel anything. It is asleep. It is away. Its near-total absence instills a cautious hope within Dani that it might _never_ wake, or that when it does, it will happen in the decrepit winter of her life and no sooner, nowhere near her summertime of buoyant dreams and love. 

**ix. (in the wake of forgiveness)**

The seasons change again, and with that change arrives an inevitability. 

They suffer their first fight, their first _real_ fight; the kind that ends in tears and mutual avoidance. It also marks the first night they’ve slept apart in over two years.

It’s a learning experience. A difficult, worthwhile one.

Dani has never been so upset at Jamie before. For someone who once single-handedly managed Bly Manor’s grounds in their entirety, who has never let them run out of soap or eggs or postage stamps, Jamie is surprisingly reckless with non-recurrent events. If they do not exist as part of her thoroughly premeditated schedule, they may or may not exist at all. And when they _do_ manifest by force of reality, Jamie either glides or crashes through them. There is no in-between. 

Jamie can manage a garden. Jamie can manage a household. Jamie can manage a business. But none are closed systems, and she cannot seem to, for the life of her, manage a stable relationship between these domains and external intrusions. 

In October, Dani broaches the topic of visiting her mother for Thanksgiving. Their relationship is complicated, but she is still her mother’s daughter and Dani worries about her. Jamie nods, contemplating the logistics of the trip, and offers her support. 

Weeks pass. November is two-thirds spent and Dani begins preparing for the trip. Her suitcase lies open on the foot of their bed, packed with a few days’ worth of clothes, when Jamie wanders in. Fear creeps into her expression at the scene - in her eyes indicative of far more dire circumstances than actuality - and she asks in bafflement, “Where are _you_ off to?”

Dani thinks she’s kidding. She _has_ to be kidding. She waits for Jamie’s roguish laugh and a sly quip, but they never come, not even when Dani reminds her of the details: the exact days set aside, their prior conversation, and Jamie’s promise to accompany her. 

Jamie sits down on the bed and curses, “Oh, fuck. I... I completely forgot.” She momentarily shuts her eyes before adding an emphatic, _“_ _Shit._ These American holidays are killing me...”

Dani presses her, “You’re still coming, right?”

“Do I have to? Did I really promise that?”

She understands that Jamie is panicking, that she’s being corralled into meeting Dani’s mother and explicating their relationship, for there are few other reasons to accompany a ‘roommate’ over a thousand miles to observe a holiday reserved for family. 

Dani will not force Jamie to go. She would never. But it is Jamie’s carelessness, her failure to even attempt preparing for and honoring a promise, that makes her livid.

“I can’t believe you,” Dani says. “I told you weeks ago! I told you again last Thursday! Would it kill you to pay attention sometimes? You know, there are other things going on outside the scope of your... your curated little world. This meant something to me.”

“Okay! Fine. I’m sorry. I’m _really_ sorry.” Jamie raises her hands in surrender before redirecting with an appeal to caution. “But I still have to ask - are you _sure_ about this, Dani? Truly, perfectly _sure_ , that you’re ready for the potential consequences? ‘Cause some people - and I’m not saying your mum is like this - would sooner abide the company of murderers.”

Dani blinks in annoyed disbelief. “If you’re not saying my mom is like that then why say it all?”

“I’m saying she _could_ be like that, not that she is.”

“Mikey didn’t hate you,” Dani sharply points out. “He was happy for you. Why can’t I hold out hope of my mom reacting the same way?”

The austerity of Jamie’s tone deepens. “Wait. Did you just—? So, you’re telling me, that Mikey _knows?_ That you _knew_ that he _knew_ , and you didn’t think to tell me?”

That, Dani immediately grasps, was a mistake. She struggles not to emote. 

A derisory smile appears on Jamie’s lips. She vocalizes a quiet, “Huh,” with a nod and accompanying raise of her brow. From there, her expression darkens. “You know what’d be appreciated? If you’d stop keeping important _shit_ like that to yourself.”

The steeliness of Dani’s gaze wavers. “Jamie—”

“So is there anything else you’re not telling me, while we’re at it? Do you ever consider how disenfranchised it makes me feel, knowing for a _fact_ that you’re holding onto things like that, while I’m just supposed to deal with it?” 

Dani’s ire revitalizes in self-defense when she snaps, “Why bother? You’re just going to wave it all off or forget about it!”

Throughout the next day, Dani feels like she’s dying. She calls her mother and claims she’s too sick to make the trip. In a way, she genuinely is. Maybe they’ll try again at Christmas.

She wallows in misery, rattled to the core by how Jamie has hurt her, and how she has hurt Jamie. She can barely eat. No distraction brings her joy - not books, television, nor music. The saturation of love in media only reminds her of what’s been broken.

For hours she believes that. She believes they’ve ruined it, shattered it, because they’re not supposed to hurt each other. That’s not them. That’s not their love, their incorruptible pledge to always protect and support each other. 

It’s no easy feat, admitting the failings of idealization. It requires patience, insight, and openness as the axis upon which everything spins ever so slightly pivots to accommodate a novel perspective. 

As it turns out, love is not unerring gallantry. 

Love is Dani waking the next morning to discover scribbled self-reminders Jamie has posted on the fridge. Love is Dani tearing a page out of a notebook in their stationary drawer to delineate the exact circumstances through which Mikey came to know about them, including what was privately discussed, and leaving it on Jamie’s pillow. Love is Jamie’s careful introspection that helps her sort which cultivars of spontaneity she excels at, which she treats like a burning house, and what elements of unresolved trauma constitute their difference. Love is Dani resolving to share important secrets as she obtains them, to not let them languish inside her until they’ve disfigured into shades of deceit. 

Love is Dani including with the kiss she presses to Jamie’s cheek each morning, gentle reminders of deviations to the predictability she takes refuge in against a world of chaos and calamity that once nearly swallowed her whole. Love is Jamie laying a comforting hand on Dani’s back whenever she notices that anxious stare she’s learned to spot a country mile away, and inviting her to disclose what ails her without risk of shame or disparagement. 

Love is caring enough to fight at all, rather than shrink from a confrontation that may bring attention to problems and initiate their resolution. Love is knowing they will be okay after the dust settles. 

Love aspires to betterment. To be better not only for themselves, but for each other. 

And forgiveness, as a substance, is thick. Inherent viscosity makes it difficult to move, difficult to administer, but under the right heat its inertia cannot be hindered. 

As she folds Jamie’s leg over her shoulder, as she paints her inner thighs with plum-red lip stain, as she feels the piercing ache of the hard wooden floor in her knees and Jamie’s fingers threading through her hair, Dani welcomes forgiveness as an essential companion of intimacy. It offers a flavor of longing that isn’t found elsewhere. It’s heady, abundant, and infused with honesty. It makes Jamie tremble, and Dani worships it. 

She _insists_ forgiveness into Jamie; fills her with it, carries it through her lips and hands and her amenability to suggestions issued by little imploring tugs at her hair. She lets her accept on her own terms, waits for Jamie’s invitation before following it with an impassioned request for another, and another, until Dani’s propitiation has made them raw and open to greatest sentiment. 

Though Dani groans under duress of building pain in her knees and her own unattended desire, and Jamie must begin relying upon her and the wall she’s braced against to stay upright, she knows that if her endurance should give out, that will be okay. That, too, will be forgiven.

One hand presses bruises into Jamie’s hip. The other curls her fingers deep and holds for as long as needed, until Jamie sighs and whimpers, and her hands smoothing over Dani’s back and shoulders find clothes to grip.

Jamie always seems so fragile in the aftermath. Dani feels like she’s holding a bird that she must take care not to crush in graceless hands.

Later in the night, Dani slips out of bed. The air is frigid. She pulls a robe over her usual bed attire, heads into the kitchen, and pours herself a glass of red wine from a bottle she opened yesterday in self-consolation. She raises the glass to plum-smudged lips and feels in her chest the chilled actual temperature debating the familiar warmth of alcohol. 

After setting her wine aside, Dani mimics a habit of Jamie’s by lighting a cigarette over a burner. She holds her hair against one shoulder so it won’t fall forward as she leans in close to the blue flame. It’s the first she’s had in over a week. 

A few minutes pass without disturbance. She catches sight of her own reflection in the window while leaning against the fridge, thinking. On the surface she appears remarkably undone and weary, but in truth, Dani is rarely in command of so much composure. 

When she hears an approach, her instinct is to quickly lower and conceal the cigarette from sight, but she stops herself mid-motion. There’s no use in pretending, and Dani vowed not to. 

From the other side of the kitchen island, carrying a blanket around her shoulders, Jamie asks, “Are you _smoking?_ ” The question is purely rhetorical, given the preponderance of evidence. “How long have you been doing that?”

“Since my birthday last year,” Dani admits, wearing a sheepish smile. She watches Jamie round the island to steal a greedy sip from the wine glass left on the counter. “I really don’t do it often, though. Just every now and then. I... do it sometimes when I’m thinking.” 

“Yeah?” Jamie sets the glass back down with a light click. “Thinking about what?”

Dani’s smile strains with embarrassment as she moves to tap the cigarette over the sink. “Oh, you know. The shop, our finances...” 

Jamie isn’t buying it, and Dani hadn’t expected her to. 

“And you,” she says, quieter. “Mostly you.” 

Nothing more is said between them. They stand beside each other, sharing the glass of wine and the cigarette until both are spent. By the time they return to bed, a clock on the wall reads a quarter to three in the morning. Reality slurs. 

When Dani dreams, she dreams of the manifold ways in which they might return to bed together in the future, where each scenario stratifies atop the next like all the eras remembered by earth, building toward an eternity.


	5. Chapter 5

**x. (in absentia)**

Growing up in her hometown, Dani used to pray for a Christmas Eve snowfall every year. She’d part her bedroom curtains in the middle of the night to look outside, and whenever her wish came true, she’d watch the snow silently blanket the neighborhood by the light of sodium-orange streetlamps for as long as she could stay awake. She did this religiously until she was seventeen years old.

Years later, Dani finds herself peeling back the curtains again, standing at the window in the living room of her childhood with the fuzzy glow of an artificial tree strung with golden bulbs and red baubles bleeding into the periphery of her vision. Outside, powdery snow flourishes in the dark and settles on the lawn. There’s no stirring, no sign of life anywhere. The entire world seems asleep.

She sips her glass of mulled wine and ponders how strange it is to be here again, occupying this familiar space while in possession of an entirely separate life. The two attempt to coexist, to reconcile, but they mingle like water and oil. The past is fading into a distant dream, buried by the snows of Vermont she now shares with Jamie.

Except for this year. Jamie hasn’t accompanied her to Iowa. Fortunately, it wasn’t a total loss. This trip supplied a pivotal data point in Jamie’s identification of commonality among her aversions. 

It’s family. Just family. In Jamie’s mind, family is a conduit for ruin and wickedness. Blood relatives, foster units, cell mates; it makes no difference. Family will abandon you, disown you, _destroy_ you. It’s wiser to isolate for the sake of self-preservation. Dani’s the only one who’s truly made it past that barricade in many, many years. 

“Where’s Tamara when you need her?” Jamie dryly quipped last week. “Maybe I should try looking her up one of these days. Actually, I’d probably get in trouble for doing that. Get put on a list or something.”

There’s no overnight solution. Dani understands and respects that better than most. It personally took her ages to overcome Eddie’s death, and to this day she’s still extracting leftover guilt and grief from her conscience like shrapnel from an old wound. 

Regardless, Dani misses her dearly. She’s grown so accustomed to Jamie’s companionship that she compares this feeling of separation to leaving home without shoes on, or without a coat in the dead of winter. 

Dani faces away from the window when she hears footsteps. Her mother has returned from rummaging through the hallway closet for a short stack of photo albums.

After clearing a space by relocating an ornamental candle and a tin of sugar cookies to the far end of the coffee table, the pair sit down to reminiscence. They flip through scarce photos of Dani as a baby, her father at roughly the same age she is now, and occasional appearances of Eddie beginning several pages in. 

While her mother appraises her evolving hairstyles through the recorded years, Dani watches her. Karen deftly balances a wine glass and a cigarette in a single well-practiced hand; an art Dani has admittedly learned in recent days. Her eyeglasses are thicker than she remembers. She’s acquired more wrinkles, too, while preexisting ones have deepened around her eyes and mouth.

“Even after all these years, I still don’t know why he did it,” says Karen, pausing to draw from her cigarette. “Why he thought a date with an oncoming train was better than spending a single night more with me. I think that upset me more than losing him.” 

The morbid reference is to Dani’s father, who is currently pictured carrying a six-year-old Dani on his shoulders. Dani cants her head for a better look and gently runs a thumb over the laminating sheet. Both are smiling, frozen in time mid-laugh. 

“Back then I was too young to notice it,” says Dani, “but now that I’m older, now that I’ve seen it in... well, other people, like the kids I used to teach, I think it was pretty obvious that he had... you know. Problems. Some days he was _so_ talkative and fun to be around. Other days he wouldn’t even look at me when I called for him.”

Dani somberly finishes her drink, fishes out the orange slice mired at the bottom of her glass, and rises to pour herself more. While in the kitchen, she can hear Karen speaking to her from the next room.

“In that case, Dani, you’re lucky to have only inherited his strengths. I speak plenty ill of him, but there’s good to say, too. He was smart, and brave as hell. Well, until he wasn’t.”

It’s going to be a long night. Dani takes a generous swig of wine, tops off her glass with half a ladle’s worth, and returns to the living room couch.

“I know this is going to sound horrible,” Karen prefaces, and Dani sensibly braces herself, “but hear me out. That night, when we lost Edmund, I remember thinking to myself, oh, thank God it happened before, rather than after, if it had to happen at all. Thank God Danielle isn’t a widow.”

A pensive frown weighs the corners of Dani’s mouth. There’s a lot to unpack and dissect in her mother’s reasoning, but she can hardly call attention to every issue. So she chooses one. 

“Is it really so different?” Dani asks. “Is it really harder, losing a spouse versus losing a fiancé?”

Karen considers the question. “I think it’s a matter of ego,” she decides. “After you’re married, you’re still chained to a name that isn’t yours. You either have to live with it or change it back. In addition, a lot of men don’t want to be a woman’s second husband. Do what you will with that one.”

“Carl didn’t seem to mind.”

“You remember Carl?” She smiles at Dani’s recollection. “He was sweet. I liked him. You were, what, twelve?”

“Something like that,” Dani agrees. “I remember him bringing around those huge bags of popcorn from the farmer’s market. I never understood why you didn’t marry him.”

Karen shrugs. “Bad bed manner is just an omen of future infidelity. It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.”

Dani sputters a laugh into her drink and reaches for a napkin, catching stray drops before they can stain her brown cashmere turtleneck. What a shame, she thinks. Poor Carl was leagues better than John the borderline narcissist, who entered the picture three years later and garnered Dani’s immediate disdain. Luckily, by then Dani was old and resourceful enough to effectively avoid him. John was kicked to the curb within six months.

“I know you probably don’t want to be reminded, but... you’re going to be thirty next year. I know moving on is hard, and it can take a while, a _long_ while, but there are a few unfortunate realities at play. If there’s a man in your life right now - God knows you’re private about these things - this is the time to ask yourself if he’s a good one. The older you get, the harder it becomes to handle small children.”

A flicker of bemusement interrupts Dani’s lingering humor. “Okay. Why would—? Oh.” She clears her throat. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“You really didn’t meet anyone over there in London? No sophisticated Englishman charmed by the mysterious foreigner?”

“I’m hardly mysterious,” says Dani. “And no. I didn’t meet anyone.”

“You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

Dani averts her gaze, sets her glass down on a coaster, and folds her arms while leaning forward. “All right, so... maybe I did meet someone.” With some courage, she manages to face her mother again and speak in severity, “But I hope you can understand that I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Ah. Trouble in paradise.” Karen raises her glass to toast the assumption. “Fine, you win. For now. I’ll change the subject. So then, how’s Vermont? Are you still living with the same roommate? What’s her name again? Jane? Joanie?”

A wry smile pulls at Dani’s lips as she alone grasps the irony of them failing to change the subject in the slightest. “Jamie,” she corrects her. “Yes. We’re still in Burlington.”

Dani is tempted to retell an anecdote Jamie once relayed to her about her name. She had explained that in England, Jamie is not a unisex name. It is unequivocally a variant of James. Jamie bears her appellation because her father did not want to raise any girls and somehow convinced himself that his wishes could influence random chance, while her mother relied on superstitions to predict the sexes of her children. Finding herself with a baby girl in her arms, an ill-fitting name etched in mind, and an empty field on a birth certificate, Louise penned in what they had at the moment. As a child Jamie hated her name. As an adult she learned to clutch and appreciate it like a charm of defiance. 

There are countless other stories Dani could tell her mother. Like the time Jamie taught her how to change a flat tire in the pouring rain while traveling through Washington. Or the origin of the watch gleaming daintily on her wrist. She could tell her about the little console table they thrifted for the sole purpose of displaying the bouquets Jamie has faithfully brought home twice a week since they’ve lived together. 

She wants to tell her all about Jamie. There is so much to say about her patience, her kindness, her empathy. How clever she is. How warm and funny she is. Dani wants to confess that Jamie is the one she met in England, that they’ve been together for three wonderful years, that they’re in love, and Dani has never been happier in her entire life. 

Instead, Dani reaches for her purse, opens her wallet, and produces a photograph. It’s of her and Jamie, captured by a helpful stranger. They’re on a misty hike in a Californian national park, smiling with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Behind them towers a colossal granite cliff. A waterfall crashes over its face, feeding a boulder-laden river. 

Karen remarks on the specialness of having close friends while Dani observes silence.

That night, Dani’s sleep is shallow. She wakes periodically, glancing about in disorientation before she recognizes the guest bedroom that was once her own. Around one o’clock, she rises to peek outside the window where fresh snow piles on hedges with the insidious discretion of a secret. This room has been recarpeted, repainted, and its furniture replaced since she left. But it’s still the same room, rearing the same loneliness within.

In the morning, Dani gifts her mother a dress and in return receives a peculiarity: a wooden box of heirloom jewelry, including specimens as old as a century. There are pearls, stones, and uncommon metals rendered in archaic styles. Even if half the collection were to be appraised as costume, its value would undoubtedly remain substantial. Dani is hesitant to accept it, but Karen insists. She’s worn her share of it over the years. It now goes to Dani, along with an implication that she may use it to attract a husband. 

Resentment for the notion will sentence the box to several years of collecting dust at the back of Dani’s closet. 

In the end, she’s glad to have made the trip. Her relationship with her mother will never be perfect, nor will certain old scars fade, but the rare glimmers of tenderness are well worth Dani’s time and effort. 

Of course, she’s happier to return home. 

Jamie picks her up at the airport. When she steps out of the car to help with Dani’s luggage, Dani throws an arm around her shoulders and kisses her cheek at the same time Jamie meets her with an identical greeting. Their breath is visible on the freezing air. Above them the sky is blue and clear, while day-old muddy snow borders the roads. 

Inside the car, Dani shrugs out of her coat and scarf and pulls down the visor mirror to fix her wind-tousled hair. The radio is on, volume dialed low and tuned to a local news station. Following days of deprivation, Dani cherishes Jamie’s nearness, the sight of her pretty profile emerging from her jacket’s faux fur collar, and the familiar sound of her voice scratched by too many cigarettes at breakfast. At their first stop at an intersection, Dani tells Jamie how she missed her with sweetness in her tone and surreptitiously reaches over to grope her inner thigh. 

Jamie flusters at the tease. She pries away Dani’s hand to hold it prisoner over the center console, where its potential for distraction is minimal. Dani manages not to laugh. Barely. 

After clearing her throat, Jamie says, “Missed you too. But not while driving.”

Their fingers lace together. Dani strokes Jamie’s hand with her thumb while watching the smear of winter-bare trees and brick buildings through the passenger side window. 

“So, how’d it go?” Jamie asks. “How’s your mum? How’s Ohio?”

Dani rolls her eyes, refusing to acknowledge the flimsy attempt at humor. “She’s good. She’s retired now, since last year, so... Hopefully she can keep preoccupied. She has friends. She still keeps in touch with Judy, too. I guess I just wanted to make sure, you know? That she’d be okay? Anyway, we talked a lot. She gave me some jewelry from my great-grandmother, or something. And she kept asking me if I had a boyfriend.”

Jamie bites back a grin. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing,” Dani replies, as matter-of-fact as she can. “Nothing at all.”

“Really?” In a glance, Jamie looks for an indication of Dani being facetious. “I thought you wanted to tell her.”

“Oh, I do. But I think I’d rather wait for you. For when you’re ready, too.”

Jamie sighs and shakes her head while making a turn. “Maybe next time you should just drag me there, kicking and screaming. It could be like ripping off a plaster. Painful, but at least it’s over in a hurry.”

“I’m not gonna do that to you,” Dani assures her. “It can wait. I promise, it can wait.”

A few years ago, Dani would have never uttered those words. While they still live in the shadow of unknown time constraints, Dani has learned the value of _timing_. Rushing an event can depreciate it to a such an extent where abstaining entirely may become preferential. Conversely, waiting for the appropriate moment can elevate an experience beyond all expectation. Timing is, counterintuitively, worth the risk of running out of time. 

“Is Owen still back at the apartment?” asks Dani. “Did you have a good time?”

“We did. And no, he had to leave this morning. He’s got business back home. He sends his best. Also, he left a gift for you. I wasn’t allowed to peek, so I don’t even know what it is.” Jamie pauses. “Speaking of which, there’s something I need to tell you. We, uh... got up to a bit of trouble while you were gone.”

When they stop at another light, Dani casts her a wary look. “What kind of trouble?”

Even while holding them at a complete stop, Jamie keeps her gaze fixed on the street ahead. “I suppose I should tell you now and get it over with,” she says, idly drumming her fingertips on the steering wheel. “I figure, the longer I wait the worse it’ll be. I know you’re probably going to be cross. But before you have a go at me, please know that I’m sorry. It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have been messing about in the first place and I take full responsibility for my actions.”

Dani’s expression has steadily deteriorated into legitimate concern. She doesn’t know what to expect. Her imagination runs the full gamut: from a broken appliance, to a detainment, to wholesale murder. The light turns green. 

“So,” Jamie says as she eases the car back up to speed, “last night, me and Owen are faffing around with kitchenware. He’s there being a fucking one-man circus with his stupid chef tricks. Meanwhile, I’m a few drinks in and a little out of it - a lot out of it, actually - and I don’t like being shown up. Guess what I’ve got up _my_ sleeve? Knife tricks, from back when. Turns out, the center of mass in kitchen knives is pretty different than what I’m used to.”

“Jamie...”

At the tone of warning in Dani’s voice, Jamie quickly adds, “It’s okay! Everything’s okay. It was just a few stitches. I knew what I was doing and Owen was there the whole time helping me. The point _is..._ it’s fixed, we didn’t have to go to hospital, and we cleaned up thoroughly. It’s like nothing even happened.”

They’re about ten minutes from home. Dani doesn’t speak for a while. By now, she’s let go of Jamie’s hand. 

Eventually, Jamie hazards a question. “Am I in trouble?”

“ _You_ ,” says Dani, facing her again to emphasize, “don’t know the _start_ of it. I was gone for three days and you’re already stabbing yourself with knives? And to think I wanted to brag to my mom about how smart and witty you are.”

A shallow line appears in Jamie’s brow, preceding a pleasantly surprised smile. “You really think that?”

“Not anymore!” 

Over the next minute, Dani supposes she’s being unfair to Jamie, who was very forthcoming about the accident. That’s all she could really ask of her, if not the sense to stay out of trouble in the first place. After sighing in resignation, Dani asks, “Where?”

Jamie shows her at home. They sit together on the sofa; Jamie removes her boots, folds her left leg onto the seat, and rolls down her sock past her pale bony ankle and heel to reveal a pad of gauze taped to the top of her foot. 

Dani pulls Jamie’s leg over her lap and redresses it for her, partly with the aim of inspecting the handiwork for herself. For an impromptu surgery, it’s a decent job. The suture is tidy, enlists a nylon thread, and the wound itself shows negligible swelling. 

She’s definitely done this before. 

“See?” says Jamie. “Told you as much. Wasn’t that bad.”

“Stop moving,” Dani tells her while reapplying new gauze. As she peers down in concentration, her hair falls forward and she reflexively tucks it back behind her ear. “You’re still in trouble.”

From where she lounges propped up by throw pillows, Jamie represses a smile. “You know... last time I was in ‘trouble’ it was kind of fun.”

Dani lifts her brow and nods as an amused breath escapes her. Even so, she resists Jamie’s mischief. She _always_ does this. Always eludes trouble by alchemizing it into naughtiness, which is much easier to forgive. “I’ll bet,” is her minimal reply. Dani finishes and diligently pulls Jamie’s sock back on for her. 

There’s silence. They watch each other, saying much despite nothing at all. 

Jamie speaks first, quietly, as though respectful of something. “I know we don’t discuss this often,” she says. “And that’s fine. Don’t need to, in general. Just thought I’d say, on the spot... that I really, _really_ like sleeping with you.” She gives a minuscule shrug, letting honesty prevail. “I fucking love it.”

Dani parts her lips in surprise, but she initially fails to form words. A small, clumsy laugh is all she can offer until language returns to her. “Was I gone _that_ long? Oh, Jamie. This had better not be related...” She indicates Jamie’s wound, in particular its location. 

“What? No! God, no. Cut it out, you’re ruining the moment.” 

Jamie retracts her legs from her lap, but Dani catches her by the ankles. She laughs at the immediate protest. Once Jamie stops feigning kicks and settles down, Dani leans over and kisses her knees through her jeans. She lays her head there, hugging Jamie’s legs to her chest, and closes her eyes.

She thinks back to the beginning of their relationship, when being with Jamie was like seeing a new color for the first time. She had so many questions. Had it felt so wonderful because it was with a woman, or because it was with Jamie? Had Dani even done anything particularly worthwhile to convince Jamie to spend another night with her? How could desire be so combustible in nature, yet so inexhaustible? 

Eager for answers, Dani couldn’t dispel her obsession for days. In fact, there are _still_ slivers of time where it returns to take up ubiquitous residence in her mind, and her hands are never at peace unless they are on Jamie, and she must paradoxically wake infinitely more exhausted than upon entering the night to feel rested in the slightest. 

And in the longer stretches between, where desperation cools, she loves Jamie no less often, with no less intensity. There are other ways to affirm her attraction. There are other ways to touch Jamie. A fond word, a fond thought, a fond gesture - she’ll carry those things to bed with her. She sleeps with her even when they’re apart.

**xi. (fidelity)**

Days later, Dani replaces the calendar in the kitchen with a new one containing twelve months of nature-themed oil paintings. The art of January, 1990, is a thicket of winterberries and birch penetrating a snowy landscape. 

She spends the holiday morning ironing clothes in the bedroom, watching a televised parade of flower-covered floats on the west coast. Jamie peeks in occasionally to spy the elaborate arrangements before she resumes scrubbing the floors. 

It’s a boring day. Nothing happens. 

The entire year, for the most part, follows suit even as the world around them twists and reaches and evolves. A country divided by ideology is reunited. A prodigious telescope settles into orbit. A worldwide network in its infancy takes its first ambling steps. 

But she and Jamie, quite comfortable on their private island of day-to-day domestics, count few ripples reaching their shores. And to a certain extent, that is a great privilege, for war and suffering inhabit the news as much as progress. Dani cannot bear to see too much of it. Overexposure makes her hope wane like a dying candle in a boundless, empty night. Her thoughts swim in shadow, and distrust in human virtue creeps as subtly and totally as rot. 

Dani turns off the television before her own empathy can betray her. 

She remains a happy woman with a happy life. Turning thirty is painless. Why should she dread aging when every day is a bounty, and a new decade is an unparalleled victory? Aging has become the most beautiful occasion Dani can conceive of. The morning she finds Jamie agonizing in the bathroom over the appearance of two silvery strands of hair, Dani wraps her arms around her waist and kisses her head in perfect adoration. She covets the dream of growing older with her, of accompanying Jamie through every obstacle and ordeal of that precious rite. 

While time is the architect of loyalty and familiarity, it isn’t localized to their relationship; it also extends its influence to regular customers of The Leafling, with whom they’ve grown acquainted. 

There’s an elderly woman who stops by every Wednesday to pick out a cheerful arrangement for her hospice-bound sister. Dani has rarely seen Jamie - so prone to effacing herself with deflective humor and reserve in the company of strangers - speak with such emotional honesty when confronted by the woman’s suppositions about death and dying. 

Then there’s the teenage son of a restaurant owner, who comes each Monday to pick up bulk orders of flowers that fill little vases upon every table in his father’s establishment. On Friday afternoons, Dani laughs with a group of window-shopping housewives in their forties who always visit during their circuit around town. A quiet girl in the sixth grade makes the shop a point of rendezvous with her older brother on their way home from different schools. 

There’s an artist, too. Michele, a pleasant woman in her late twenties who employs various plants as her primary constituents in staged photography and live installations. She has shiny black hair, a contagious laugh, and a penchant for strange earrings. Enamel planes, umbrellas, albatrosses. Dani checks every time. Michele always has something subversive to say about art or politics, and always manages to frame her opinions in good humor. They like her. 

In mid-October, Dani unfolds a step ladder to retrieve a few potted dahlias on a high shelf for Michele. She’s performed this minor service hundreds of times without incident. She’s never fallen, dropped anything of importance, nor embarrassed herself with regrettable wardrobe choices. No, what she does today is inconceivably worse. 

During the transfer - an innocent dahlia migrating from one’s custody to another’s - Michele covers Dani’s hand with her own. The touch is inconsequential in the scope of vaster things, and likely forgotten by Michele seconds after its occurrence. But when her nerves light up with a jolt of uneasy excitement that rallies in her head like instant drunkenness— 

Dani feels like she’s committed a crime. 

For dinner Dani makes soup and splits a sourdough sandwich between them. After delivering their portions to the kitchen island, she sits and stares at her food with no hunger for it.

She really ought to tell Jamie about what happened. It haunts her. Of all the secrets she could keep from her, this is among the most malign. Yet, that’s precisely what makes it so impossible to express - because there’s no sense, rhyme, or reason to it. This is a beastly thing without mind. It is an urge of desecration. It is entropy, living in her flesh. 

She _loves_ Jamie. With all her heart. But there it is - a familiar feeling from a foreign source - crashing into her like thunder. If that feeling can be so cheaply obtained, where now does that leave the value of their monogamy? Their years of labor, of tending, of promise? 

“Hey. You all right, Dani?”

Dani’s fingers weakly curl around her clean spoon as she’s brought back to the surface. From the chair beside hers, Jamie peers at her with concern. She’s already halfway through her meal.

“I, uh,” Dani begins, feeling as hollow as she sounds, “I just don’t feel so good, right now. I don’t think I can eat. It’s...” She gestures vaguely enough to preserve plausible deniability for anything that may be interpreted. “You know.”

Understanding morphs Jamie’s concern into sympathy. “Month’s up already, then?” When Dani doesn’t correct her, she suggests, “You want to go lie down? Don’t worry, I’ll tidy up.”

Dani nods in agreement and excuses herself. 

While lying across their bed, Dani can hear the running kitchen faucet and the clatter of dishes through the door left ajar. Her mind races. Guilt builds. She’s been wearing Jamie’s favorite fleeced-lined jumper all day. It holds her like a warm, soft embrace far beyond her earning. Dani nearly worries herself to tears.

And Jamie, in her limitless compassion, can only interpret the pain in her eyes as an undue burden imposed by her physiology. She lays soothing hands on Dani’s shoulders and slowly massages her way to her lower back, then retraces and repeats her path, as they watch a recent episode of an uncanny television series about a teenage girl murdered in a rural northern town full of characters having affairs, and suffering from them. 

Without forewarning, Jamie uncovers the back of Dani’s neck with a brush of her hand and kisses her there. It feels exactly as it should. Dani lightly shivers, experiences the delicate pull of arousal between her legs dovetailing with the pleasure secretly derived from Jamie’s firm handling. She wants to have sex with her. She wants Jamie to touch her with the extensive personal knowledge and intimacy they’ve built together over years, ridiculing the idea that anyone or anything could ever compare. 

But Dani has locked herself into another lie. She won’t have affirmation for days. 

Next week, she’s folding laundry when Jamie tells her about the invitation. They’ve been invited to a small, casual Halloween party, where costumes are unnecessary and drinking will be tempered.

The host of the party is Michele. 

Dani’s reservations are numerous. Aside from the ineffable one, they have no use for the macabre. Horror, agony, doom; it’s all superfluous when they’ve plenty to contend with already. That only leaves the more tame, child-friendly aspects of Halloween to appreciate. Pumpkin carving, fake spiders, eyeballs made of candy, the such. 

Although, Dani still finds bedsheet ghosts to be in poor taste, and as a proponent of humane catch-and-release, spiders are hardly frightening.

They’ve never observed Halloween beyond handing out candy to kids from neighboring apartments when they come racing through the hallways dressed like monsters and princesses and superheroes. Maybe they should give it a chance, says Jamie. They don’t keep many friends, and those they do are often well out of reach. Also, declining the invite would be rather gauche, given Michele’s long-term support and the new customers from her community of local artists she’s sent their way.

Dani can’t contest her sound reasoning without raising suspicion. 

They attend on Halloween night. Michele’s apartment is dim and bohemian and her other guests are preoccupied with substantive conversation. Dani has the academic background to understand many references but none of the razor wit to keep up; her intelligence is more reflective than immediate. Jamie is her reciprocal. She can outmaneuver the logic of the sharpest of them, but gets frustrated in labyrinths of names and terminology. 

Dani drinks until she’s tipsy and avoids Michele like a plague. 

A few hours in, the party assembles in the front room to view a movie. Under typical circumstances that might have been Dani and Jamie’s cue to leave, but both are currently indisposed in the way of driving ability. So they stay a while longer. 

The film Michele plays for them is disconcerting. At first, Dani doesn’t recognize it as a horror movie at all. It’s a foreign film almost a decade old about a violently crumbling marriage between an unfaithful wife who always wears blue and a high-strung man in a rocking chair. The psychological unwellness of the couple is evident. It worsens until the atmosphere of impending atrocity culminates in a scene where the woman in blue, traveling alone through a tunnel linking subway stations, is possessed by a fit of laughter. She laughs and screams, thrashing and contorting and throwing herself against the tunnel walls over three uninterrupted minutes of inhuman, frenetic anguish.

Over time, Dani’s breathing grows rapid and shallow. A wall of terror and dread rises before her, looming. It buckles. It buries her, crushes her. Dani can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t see anything but herself as the woman on screen, her mind in shambles, her soul debased. 

When Jamie notices, she touches Dani’s arm and whispers her name, but receives no response. Dani’s eyes are wide and petrified, fixated on the screen. Immediately grasping the situation, Jamie helps her rise from their corner of the sofa without causing much disruption and they abscond down the short hall. All the way, Jamie speaks against the side of Dani’s head as the latter trembles, “It’s okay. You’re okay. Come on. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

They reach the bathroom. Jamie flicks on the lights, shuts the door behind them, and cradles Dani’s face in her hands as she gasps for breath. Dani can’t parse what Jamie is saying to her. She feels like she’s frantically scaling a water-slick cliff and can’t stop slipping, can’t stop falling, into darker chasms. Every thought occurs simultaneously in an explosion of sound. The splintering, fraying world is cold and she is colder.

When she glimpses herself in the mirror, Dani sees tears, self-induced rigor, and primordial fear. Jamie’s voice comes back into focus. She’s saying, “See? There’s nothing here. It’s just you. It’s just me. Easy. Keep breathing. You’re going to be okay.”

Her reassurance - a light in the fog - helps guide Dani back. She gradually regains control of her breathing, relents when she realizes just how hard she’s clutching Jamie’s arms, and utters on a deeply repentant whimper, “I’m _s-sorry._ ”

Jamie strokes her hair away from her face and the tears from her cheeks. “Shh. It’s okay, baby. You don’t have to be sorry. _I’m_ sorry. I shouldn’t have drank. We should’ve left earlier.”

 _It’s just you_. 

Those words echo in Dani’s mind. It _is_ just her. There’s no ghostly influence, no hellish evil oozing from her heart. It’s just her.

And maybe that’s even scarier. 

They escape the party to sit in the car parked on the street, waiting for Jamie’s driving confidence to return. An apology is in order for their sudden disappearance, but that’s an issue for another day. The chill of autumn drives them to don their coats. Dani rests her temple against the window, staring blearily at the dark pavement of the sidewalk outside her door. 

“That was a bad one,” Jamie notes in an austere whisper. “That was really bad. That hasn’t happened in a while, has it?”

Weary, Dani replies, “No.”

“Do you have any idea why? It was the film, wasn’t it? Or— Well, I guess we can save it for later. You probably don’t want to talk about it right now.”

She swallows and blinks a few times, trying to ward off new tears. It’s time. Dani knows it’s time to confront the incident before it’s too late. Maybe it is already too late. She removes her head from the window and looks down at her lap where she fidgets by squeezing her fingers in those of her opposite hand. 

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she says, so remote she’s surprised Jamie hears her. Dani bravely meets her eyes. “There was this woman. It was a while ago. A few weeks ago. She—” The words keep stalling in her throat. Eventually, she has to avert her gaze to force them out. “When she touched me, the way it felt, the way I felt _something_... It was wrong. It was all wrong. And I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Several seconds of cowardice pass before Dani can look at her again. Jamie is grim and brittle with nascent heartbreak. When she asks her, desolate, “Did you sleep with her?” Dani realizes she has disastrously misspoken.

“What? _No_. Jamie, _no._ That’s not what I meant. I meant, like... like she touched my hand, and I... I thought I could only feel that way about you.”

Jamie nods, lifting a hand to wipe her face. “Do you think about her, or do you think about what happened?”

Dani hesitates. She hadn’t previously recognized the distinction, but her answer is obvious, absolute. “I think about what happened. How it doesn’t make sense.”

A steady exhale of relief departs Jamie as she briefly shuts her eyes. “This is why,” she says, “I want you to tell me things. Not just because I want to be included, but because... You _do_ this, Dani. You bottle things up and you _torture_ yourself with them. You wring them in your hands and they get twisted and distorted until they’re nothing like what they started as. Back at the wedding, when I told Denny I was going to kill him, did you ever believe I would actually do it?”

“No,” Dani answers. Bodily harm had been a distinct possibility, hence their timely intervention, but the prospect of murder was completely hyperbolic. 

“It’s what I wanted,” Jamie continues. “At that moment, I really wanted to kill him. I’m not kidding. ‘Cause when you get down to it, we’re just a bunch of animals with fucking car keys—” She lifts and drops her keys on the dashboard in a noisy clatter. “—and... and _rent_. But I wouldn’t have killed him, because I’m still a _person_ who can make _choices_. Dani, feeling something strange or unexpected isn’t the same as acting on it, or pursuing it. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Dani opens the glovebox. “You never say it, but...” Her sentence fades when she pinches her nose with a tissue. “Sometimes I wonder if you get tired of me being... crazy.”

Jamie sighs in commiseration. She reaches out to perch her wrist on Dani’s shoulder, tucks her hair behind her ear, and touches her cheek with a thumb. “We’re just _people_ ,” she tells her, emotion weighing heavy on her voice. “We’re not perfect. We will never _be_ perfect. But I don’t want you thinking, even for a second, that I would ever tire of you. Understand?”

She wraps her fingers tightly around the hand at her shoulder and nods. 

“And _Jesus_ , Dani. Please, don’t ever scare me like that again.”

They spend an additional twenty minutes awaiting sobriety. Only when Jamie is certain does she turn her key in the ignition. She gears into drive, checks her mirrors, and pauses. Dani sees headlights, hears the rush of wind and wheels as another car passes them easily ten miles above the speed limit. And she realizes, all too suddenly, that she has been here before in a different life, under entirely different circumstances, with fundamentally different outcomes. 

Jamie safely pulls away from the curb and takes them home. 


	6. Chapter 6

**xii. (belonging** or **the driver’s seat)**

Dani’s attention oscillates between two bottles of white wine, one weighing each hand. Her coat shields her from the chill of the liquor aisle, but her legs, clad only in nylons from her knees all the way to her glossy black heels, succumb to a shiver. Jamie is browsing nearby, comparably overdressed. 

The occasion is an impulse agreed upon just two days prior: a date night in the early spring of 1991, independent of any event of significance. It’s not even the weekend. They’re heading home from a classic movie-and-dinner on a Tuesday evening, finely clothed, carving their own holiday out of banality. 

Another furtive glance at Jamie is stolen. Her dark silhouette, lurking between glaring overheads and white polished floors, reflects a gradual change in her wardrobe. This new decade subdues them, invites earthen tones and rich brooding palettes into their lives. Jamie is both a patron of tidy sophistication and insouciant androgyny, depending on the circumstance, mood, and company. Velvet and flannel coexist peacefully in her closet space. She ties her hair back more often than not, citing reasons of practicality, but Dani knows it’s equally in appeasement of fashion’s new religion: grace through subtlety. Jamie will be thirty-two in a month, and Dani can’t fathom how she wears each year more elegantly than the last. 

In similar accordance with the current manner - cool and effortless - Dani’s hairstyling conforms. Her voluminous waves now largely rely upon the vagaries of what naturally occurs after a standard blow-dry and an errant hand sweeping back through the shiny blonde curtain. Jamie still neglects idle tasks to stare, and that’s all that matters. 

Music has changed, too. The glitzy pop of the 1980s recedes to give audience to floaty acoustic melodies, cynical tales from the streets, and raucous unrest. Authenticity is the only commodity that matters in popular conscience, despite its rarity and volatility.

When Jamie returns to her, Dani presents her dilemma. “Which one?”

“Prettier label,” she decides without hesitation, tapping the bottle in Dani’s right hand. “Ready to go?”

They attract several inquisitive looks at checkout. They’re a spectacle, an ephemeral mystery against vibrant shelves of candy bars and chewing gum. While crossing the parking lot, Dani listens to the gritty click of their heels and Jamie’s laugh rising freely through clean air. The moon above is obscured by temperamental clouds. Shallow puddles from an earlier drizzle collect in sunken asphalt, reflecting the glare of storefront and street signs. 

In the car, in the dark, from the driver’s seat, Dani kisses her. A hand strokes along Jamie’s neck, fingertips at her hairline, collecting her jaw in her palm. She tilts her head. Careens into her. Bites Jamie’s lip to elicit a delicious sound of surprise. 

It’s the sort of reckless, semi-public indulgence Dani might’ve chased years ago if important choices had not already been made for her. She dedicates the moment to herself at half her current age, to that bewildered teen who’d stare at the lips of other girls assuming she wanted to imitate them, rather than encounter them. 

They part abruptly as the gaze of another car’s headlights sweeps over them on its way to an adjacent parking stall. It’s exhilarating. Dani isn’t afraid. She giggles and ignores Jamie’s stern cautioning, utterly careless, protected by virtue of night.

At home, Jamie tips a pale stream of wine into a pair of chilled glasses standing on the kitchen island. They’ve hung up their coats at the door.

Dani’s first sip makes her wince. “It’s kind of dry,” she says. “Maybe we should’ve bought a rosé.”

“You drink dry to pace yourself. That’s the whole point.”

She shrugs, admittedly in no mood to pace herself. Before she can tilt back her glass for a longer and more imprudent sample, Jamie stops her with a hand on her forearm. 

“Before we overdo it,” she says, “there’s something I want to show you.”

While Jamie digs through the drawer of an end table in the front room, Dani spectates and refrains from drinking. Various mail items, pamphlets, and manuals they’ve saved over time are exhumed until Jamie reaches a catalog envelope hidden at the bottom. She raises it, alluding to a consequential nature, and delivers it to Dani. 

Dani accepts the invitation to explore the envelope for herself. It’s addressed to Jamie, from a certain government agency that ruins the surprise straight away. Nevertheless, Dani readily extracts the documents within, including a peach-colored card with the words _Resident Alien_ printed at the top. Jamie’s portrait accompanies her fingerprint and a few personal identifiers.

“I kept thinking,” Jamie elaborates as Dani beams at her, “about how so much is in your name. I thought I should start carrying my own weight, officially and all. Commit more concretely. Because this is my life, too. This is my home, here, with you. I figured since I’m already paying them heaps of taxes, they’d be happy to have me. I’ll have full dual citizenship in five years, in ‘96. Could be three, if I get married. Shame about that one.”

 _“Jamie.”_ Dani speaks her name like its own endearment and folds adoring arms around her neck. “Why did you keep this secret? I could’ve helped with the application.” 

Jamie affords a diffident smile and shrug. “It’s silly, but... I knew I could handle them rejecting just me. With you involved, it would’ve been like them rejecting the both of us. That, I wouldn’t have handled as well.” 

She kisses her softly, chastely, and tries not to feel intimidated by the length of time Jamie projects. 

_Five years_. Five years ago, Dani was arm-in-arm with Eddie, heading for a sheer drop into a lifetime of misery. Jamie wasn’t so much as a figment of her imagination. If her entire life could invert over half a decade, how might that length of time impose itself again? Will the next five years be kind to them? Cruel to them? Can Dani even hope to live so long?

Dani takes that postponed intemperate drink of wine and occupies her mind with brighter thoughts. She plays a music cassette, refits her hands on Jamie’s shoulders, and teases her about jury duty and voting while feeling luscious in her maroon dress, the shade of darkest blood. When she asks her to dance, Jamie evades a direct response by condemning the dreamy piano refrain as melodramatic.

“It’s _profound_ ,” Dani insists, crossing her wrists behind Jamie’s head. “Please?”

Jamie breathes uneasily and says, “I’d just embarrass myself.”

“There’s no one here!”

“ _You’re_ here.”

“And? You’ve embarrassed yourself in front of me tons of times. This is nothing.”

With ample sarcasm, Jamie mutters, “Well that’s completely reassuring.”

“Oh, come _on_. Just this once. You might like it. If you don’t, we can stop whenever you want.”

Jamie contemplates her decision with austerity better suited for a vital financial predicament threatening long-term ramifications. The instant she concedes, “Okay,” Dani’s smile brightens. However, she halts Dani before she can assimilate her into anything resembling steps to finish her glass of wine. She shakes her sleeves out as though in preparation of some nondescript athletic feat, returns her hands to Dani’s waist, and promises, “One song.”

Her hands are promptly removed. While keeping one in her left, Dani guides the other to her shoulder, saying, “I’ll lead.”

Relief and anxiety occur in the same moment as they pass over Jamie’s face and disappear as quickly as they arrived, replaced by focus. Dani starts slow, biting her tongue to keep from laughing at Jamie’s initial errors. She may lose her forever at the slightest chuckle. But Jamie gets the hang of it faster than either expected, and Dani tempts fate with a turn. 

Jamie trips, hisses a curse, and clutches Dani hard for balance as she catches her. Surprisingly, Jamie laughs first. It’s a nervous sound, preserving the attitude of contradictions she’s brought with her. They recover and resume. Dani holds them close, affectionately cheek-to-cheek, and tells her, “Now this one will always make me think of you.”

Their knees collide in a sharp jab of pain. Jamie explains herself, “You’re distracting me,” and Dani turns to distract her again by planting a kiss behind her jaw, right below her ear. She breathes Jamie’s dusky perfume and savors the cool touch of her earrings against the bridge of her nose.

This time, Jamie steps on her foot. Dani will never know whether it was intentional.

Not thirty minutes later, they’re in bed. Dani’s dress is rucked up to her hips to permit the straddle she holds over Jamie. She kisses her deeply, fiercely. Fingertips graze the sides of her face on their way to a steadying hold. 

Upon hooking her thumbs into Jamie’s skirt, Dani gathers the waistbands of black stockings and underwear before dragging them down her legs all at once. They’re moving fast - as fast as they can bear to. She settles between Jamie’s thighs and applies her hands where they’re needed most. 

Dani sinks into her at the first eager cant of Jamie’s hips. Although crowded by limited space, both hands work in concert. One entreats, one advances, deeper and faster as Jamie sighs little sounds against Dani’s lips, foregoing a rather strict tradition of near-silence.

Her heart is aflame with want. Dani dips her head, scattering messy kisses over the sensitive skin of her collar and chest. She slides up and whispers against Jamie’s throat, telling her how pretty she is, was, and always will be. She tells her about the first time she wanted her. How she couldn’t stop thinking about her. 

“You were _so_ sweet to me,” Dani speaks low, breathing strained in sympathy. “I wanted to touch you before I even realized what it meant. I didn’t care how. It was like... I wanted to reach into you and... make you feel _something_ , and so much of it that—”

Jamie frets. Her hands shakily drag over Dani’s folded legs and bracelet her wrists, desperate to steady herself against the force rocking into her. Dani lets her stay. She likes the thought of Jamie sensing all the loving labor and stress her wrists endure in devotion to her pleasure. 

“It’s right here,” Dani continues, coveting every hushed moan like a prize. “The way you look, right now, when you’re this close.” She angles her knuckles the way Jamie adores, pushing her closer. “It’s almost like you’re about to cry. Sometimes, I feel really guilty about it. Jamie, you know I never like to see you cry.”

Beneath her, pressed into a sea of creased bedsheets, Jamie looks exquisitely delicate; mere moments from breaking. Her shoulders draw inward. Her head falls back against the pillow, exposing a neck dappled red from too much attention. 

“But here... I want you to. _So much_.”

Jamie comes undone with a final, overwrought sigh loud enough to cross the threshold of her voice. 

Even while carrying her through to the end, Dani says, “Tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do anything.” She pulls back to remove her earrings in a highly deliberate display. Dani sets them aside on the nightstand and suggestively strokes the length of Jamie’s thighs, from her hips to her knees. “Anything.” 

They’re up _much_ later than they should be. Consequences will manifest during the following workday, but the future is spared no regard in the realm of relaxed silence. 

Dani sits at the edge of the bed and hands a glass of water to Jamie, who lounges exhausted and clothed haphazardly. While she sits upright for a drink, Dani fits a cigarette between her lips and lights it with Jamie’s flip lighter. Her robe hangs around her waist, baring her chest to cool ambient air that soothes overheated skin. Several seconds pass before she notices Jamie’s scrutiny.

“What?” Dani offers the cigarette to her.

“Nothing,” says Jamie. She steals a drag. “Just trying to figure you out. There’s little bits, here and there, that I still don’t get all the way.”

Bemusement persists in Dani’s expression. “Like what?” 

“All day you’ve been in a _mood_. Don’t get me wrong; I like it. I just don’t understand it. Where it comes from. Why you do these things, out of the blue.”

“What, this?” Dani indicates by raking her gaze over the bed. She answers as if it were the most obvious truth in the world, “Because I love you. Because I like making you feel good.”

Jamie laughs in a single breath. “I meant more along the lines of... Sometimes you get really—” She briefly pulls her bottom lip between her teeth while searching for the appropriate words. Tragically, they elude her. “Know what? Maybe I don’t need to understand it. Maybe it’s more fun that way. The whole surprise of it.”

The cigarette is returned to Dani. She pensively draws from it, her line of sight drifting to the floor, to her oak dresser. “You ever have days where... You just fit inside yourself perfectly? Like, when you look down at your hands and they’re _just_ the right size, or when you look in the mirror and... can’t complain? And existing doesn’t hurt at all?”

A slow nod marks Jamie’s tentative understanding.

“I’m having a lot of those days, now,” says Dani, turning to face her again. “It’s nice.”

**xiii. (to forever inspire)**

They’ve been home two hours following a day trip to Lake Champlain; sun-weary, walking-weary, and retiring into pajamas before the sky is even dark, when Jamie takes Dani’s hands into her own and says, “I’ve made a decision. Well, _we’re_ going to make a decision, as soon as you tell me what you think.”

Judging by the tiny smile holding back her excitement, Dani knows this is good news. She eagerly awaits it with undivided attention. 

“Don’t laugh, okay?” Jamie says. “Least until I’m finished. So. We’ve got a bit of extra money in the bank this year, and... I was wondering what you’d think if I said I wanted to enroll in some units this autumn term.”

Dani’s smile broadens. “Like, for fun? Or are you—?”

“I...” Unexpectedly, Jamie trails off at the apparent silliness of her answer. “I kind of want an education. Nothing fancy, just one of those two-year things. I know I don’t technically need it, but... I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. There’s a university in town, that weird one. For ‘adult learners’? I read up about it. They’re really flexible. I could do nights a few days a week.”

“Jamie,” Dani says, squeezing her hands with genuine delight. “I think that sounds _wonderful_. You should do it.”

“Yeah? You think so?”

She reels Jamie in for a quick kiss on the cheek and an embrace. “I know you’ll do really well,” she says, and means it. 

Not only is Jamie bright enough to succeed; she carries with her a drive for personal improvement. Long gone are her days of malcontent and hopelessness. Every step Jamie takes puts them further behind her, and every day she seems more at peace with herself and what she’s become: a beacon of reliability, a nurturer of many things, and most importantly, a survivor lucky enough to have moved on.

When the fall term of 1992 begins, Jamie spends evenings on campus three days a week. Typically, she’s back by ten o’clock. Dani waits up on the sofa, dressed for bed, reading books or magazines until she hears Jamie’s key turning in the lock. Jamie shuffles in, lets her bag slide from her shoulder to the floor in an unceremonious heap, and immediately embarks on a path to the fridge for whatever leftovers lie within. 

Dani asks how she’s faring. Speaking from the side of her mouth not full of cold pasta, Jamie bluntly proclaims, “It’s fucking boring, that’s what it is. The maths, I mean. I had maths today.”

“What about the other subjects?”

She shrugs. “History’s fine, I guess. Mind-numbing, too, until the wars kick in. I like the literature module best. Always liked reading. _Writing_ about reading, on the other hand... that’s new. Don’t know how I feel about it yet.”

Confusion draws Dani’s brow. “You never wrote essays when you were a kid?”

With a derisory scoff, Jamie replies, “I didn’t do _any_ of this shite as a kid. You’d sooner find me stealing the other kids’ bike chains. I used to make them into jewelry.”

Dani finds her claim hard to believe - specifically, about Jamie’s writing inexperience. The anecdote about bike chains, she believes without question. A few days before her first paper is due, Jamie enlists Dani’s help with proofreading. She’s happy to assist, but as she discovers during a preliminary skim, her advice may not be needed at all. 

“Is this your first draft?” Dani inquires from where she’s comfortably tucked in bed, reading by her nightstand lamp.

Jamie slides beneath the sheets and rests her chin on Dani’s shoulder to check which page she’s on. “That bad, huh?”

“No,” she says, surprise carrying her tone. “That’s the thing. It’s not bad at all. It’s actually really _good_ , Jamie. You have a great voice and your argument is well thought-out. I found a few grammatical errors, but overall... I think your professor’s going to like it.”

Flattery makes Jamie smug, and Dani allows her to enjoy it for the night. Pointing out her catastrophic misspelling of the word _exacerbate_ can wait until tomorrow. 

Mathematics, however, are an entirely different beast. Jamie struggles from the start. Drawing from her teaching experience, Dani recognizes the issue as a combination of acute disinterest and lack of mental discipline. It’s a tragic recipe that transcends age, sabotaging scores of children and adults alike who are otherwise quite capable. 

A reality stands: if Jamie wants to complete a general associate degree, she must pass several tiers of required math. The grueling path ahead nearly discourages her from continuing next term. When Jamie poses a hypothetical one evening, asking whether Dani would still love her if she dropped out, Dani is swift to intervene. She will tutor her, even if that calls for late nights spent walking through sheets of practice problems. 

Jamie doesn’t precisely see this as noble dedication. It is more akin to torture. 

“I mean, what are we even doing, effectively?” Jamie grieves. It’s eleven o’clock, and they’re still sitting around the coffee table covered by an open textbook and loose scratch paper. 

Dani looks up from the example she’s trying to convey and plainly states, “We’re completing the square. You’re converting standard to vertex form.”

“Well, what’s my motivation?”

Even more plainly, Dani stresses, “Finding the vertex of a parabola. Or maybe you’re after the bigger picture of - oh, I don’t know - passing your class?”

Jamie huffs in exasperation.

“I know you can do this,” Dani tells her. “You just have to focus. And, honestly? You’re probably going to have to rethink your relationship with math, because from where I’m standing, there is _way_ too much antagonism going on here.”

“It’s just numbers and letters floating around in space!” Jamie argues. “They don’t mean anything! How can you expect me to follow along when there’s nothing being said?”

Dani points the eraser end of her pencil at Jamie. “That,” she confidently says, “is where you’re wrong. Look.” She flips her paper over to a fresh side, sketches a half-oval, then writes a formula beside it. “In one line, you’ve described exactly what that shape is. And I mean _exactly_. Math wasn’t my favorite either in college, but I learned to appreciate it because it’s... well, because it’s so precise and predictable. No matter how much the world changes, math stays the same every time. It’s something you can rely on. Some people have even said that math is the only real truth that exists.”

She can’t decipher the intensely nonplussed look Jamie issues her. If Dani had asserted time travel were real she would’ve received an identical response. 

But over the next ten seconds of rumination, something compels Jamie toward curiosity. She finally breaks wary eye contact, orients the textbook in Dani’s direction, and asks her to walk through one more problem. In detail.

The next graded exam Jamie brings home is a cause for celebration, rather than mourning. _Eighty-three percent_ , she flaunts. It’s an immense improvement since her gruesome fifty-eight, which Jamie disposed of over the kitchen sink with a flick of her flip lighter. 

This one, at Dani’s playful insistence, goes on the fridge.

And Jamie’s optimism returns. She reads and annotates assigned texts at the shop during slow hours, spends her free evenings practicing problems within easy reach of Dani’s tutelage. On weekends, she composes papers. 

One rainy night, Jamie stays late studying with classmates. When she returns, Dani is in bed, asleep. Jamie enters the bedroom and turns on a lamp to illuminate the contents of her drawers while changing.

“Sorry,” Jamie whispers as Dani stirs and turns away from the light. She tugs her sweater over her head, sheds her jeans, and quickly pulls on her nightclothes before switching off the lamp and climbing into bed. All is dark and silent again, save for sheets of rain steadily battering the window. 

Dani rolls over to drape an arm around Jamie’s waist. Sleep slurs her words when she asks, “What time is it?”

“A little past midnight,” Jamie quietly answers, appropriately mindful of the hour. She reciprocates the loose embrace.

“You’re really late.”

“I told you I would be, remember?”

With some further rousing, Dani indeed remembers. She hums, flattens her hand on Jamie’s upper back, and pulls herself close enough to bury her face into the curve of her neck where Jamie’s skin carries a chill from the dismal weather. “Tell me about your day,” she says, the dreamy request half-muffled. 

“Well, it’s Tuesday,” Jamie answers, rubbing her back with slow, pacifying strokes. “You were there for most of it. So I’ll tell you how the studying went. At this point, I actually know more than they do. Not by a whole lot, but enough. One of them - funny bloke named Jake - says he doesn’t understand how I royally screwed the first exam, based on how I’m doing now. I said I have a secret weapon: a massive nerd’s been tutoring me.”

By now, Dani is well awake. “Massive nerd, huh? After all my help, this is your idea of gratitude?”

“My idea of gratitude is following up ‘massive nerd’ with ‘best bloody teacher I’ve ever known’. I told them how you used to teach. They asked if I’d found you through the school, and whether they could hire you. I said no, she’s just... I think I used the words ‘best friend’ and ‘roommate’. I know, pretty trite.”

Their conversation dissolves. A thought occurs to Dani. The notion begins existence as a quaint little possibility; the kind of what-if that prances through the mind when showering, driving a familiar route, or doing dishes, and dissipates as soon as those inveterate activities are complete. This one, however, solidifies and remains, perhaps through sheer plausibility. 

Dani rises, holding herself on her elbows, and gazes down at Jamie with intent. Even by the feeble, nocturnal city light seeping in through the window, Dani can detect the question developing in her features. 

She asks Jamie, “Do they really need a tutor? Are they really having a tough time?”

“I guess so, yeah,” says Jamie. “That’s why we were studying. Midterm’s coming up.”

Dani’s hand moves to softly hold Jamie’s cheek. The gesture is half-imploring, half-teasing, and Jamie knows her proposition without requiring any further elaboration. And she could never refuse a request so tender.

Preparation is an oddly involved, yet exciting affair. 

Dani borrows Jamie’s textbook to refresh her fluency and buys a pad of poster-sized paper from the art supply store down the street from The Leafling. The morning of that designated Friday, she combs the apartment for any compromising items of evidence: certain photos which hint too heavily at the nature of their relationship, and notes on the refrigerator composed under influence of romance. Such things are temporarily removed from sight. 

Hours before Jamie is due home with her classmates in tow, Dani addresses her wardrobe, considering how she might present herself. Fourth graders care little for fashion sense as long as it isn’t garish enough to be wielded against its wearer. Adults, on the other hand, may expect a certain degree of professionalism as a reflection of one’s authority on the subject matter. She must also take care not to overdo it. Visible effort loses an audience’s confidence as quickly as a complete lack thereof. 

She wears warm earth tones, blending into autumn. A long brown skirt hangs close to her legs, and a ginger-dyed cardigan drapes over a collared blouse with a subdued floral motif. She’s comfortable, pragmatic, and entirely in control. 

Jamie brings two peers that evening. There’s the aforementioned Jake, a jocund man in his mid-twenties with sandy curtained hair and a lanky stature hidden by baggy clothes. And there’s Priscilla, a tall woman in her thirties with long dark curls that reach the middle of her back and a hint of an accent Dani can’t quite place. 

They’re all perfectly mismatched. Introductions are pleasant and socializing lasts for a solid forty minutes before they get to work. As Dani learns, Priscilla is recently divorced and eager for a life on her own legs. Jake is a high school dropout weary of his job as a grocery store clerk and after more rewarding professions. 

Eventually, they assemble in the front room. Dani props up her poster paper on the arms of a chair and sits beside it, a black marker in hand, while the others huddle around the coffee table with their notebooks. She must avoid meeting Jamie’s eyes. The way she sits there in her smart black turtleneck, watching with gentle admiration, is enough to derail Dani’s train of thought mid-sentence. 

The night is a complete success. Dani knows math is dry. Fourth graders as well as college students will never find it appetizing unless administered as something with more contextual substance. When Dani intersperses bland number-juggling with engaging discussions of infinity and undefined cases, glazed-over expressions suddenly grow lucid. She encourages their participation. Their questions, complaints, opinions. The key is, and always has been, simply fostering interest. 

By the end of their session, all three are defining domains and ranges of radical functions without assistance. And the unique joy of inducing a positive change, however large or small, settles radiantly in Dani’s heart. 

Upon departure, Jake enthusiastically shakes Dani’s hand and asks her to stop by the grocery store while he’s working so he can sneak her discounts. Priscilla promises a bottle of wine the next time their paths cross. 

When they’re alone, Dani requests Jamie’s evaluation. “How’d I do?” she asks, audibly hopeful. “It went well, right?”

“You were brilliant,” Jamie answers. She places her hands on Dani’s shoulders and smooths them down to her arms, to her hands. “Absolutely brilliant. And _I_ —” Her voice dips low with suggestion. With a smile to match Dani’s, she leans in for a kiss, already tugging her in the direction of the bedroom. “—am hot for teacher.”

After a respectable midterm result, the group meets again. They’ve advanced to logarithmic functions - still well within Dani’s purview. Trigonometry marks the vanishing point of faith in her ability to properly convey the material. Fortunately for them, Jamie will not have to venture beyond standard algebra. 

At the end of the night, when they’re cleaning up papers and books and pencils, Jake approaches Dani in the kitchen to seek clarification regarding a specific problem. It’s an easy explanation. Then he poses another question, wholly unrelated to math.

“If you’re ever free sometime,” he says, cheerful, “maybe we could get a drink in town. I know some good places. Give me a call?” 

Dani receives and unfolds a piece of notebook paper with a phone number scribbled on it. She smiles apologetically. “That’s very sweet of you,” she says. “I appreciate it. I do. But I’m afraid I’m... I’m already in a relationship. Thank you, though. It really is flattering.”

He stuffs his hands into his pockets and nods, self-conscious and disheartened, but maintains a decent attitude. “Thanks for letting me down easy, I guess. I’ll see you around. Hey, uh— If you ever change your mind, the door’s open.”

When she informs Jamie an hour later, it is with utmost caution. Dani doesn’t want to sound annoyed by the proposition, because she genuinely wasn’t. These things happen. It’s part of life. As far as she’s concerned, Jake deserves kindness, not disparagement. 

Jamie, however, has no such lenience to spare. 

Minutes after settling into bed, she glares at the dark ceiling and shatters the peace of the night by swearing, “ _Twat_. I told him you were unavailable the day he said you were pretty.”

“Isn’t that for me to say?” Dani remarks from beside her.

Highly perplexed, Jamie faces her and says, “Well I’m sorry for speaking for you. How stupid of me to assume that would be your answer.”

She sighs. “I just... I don’t want to scare him off. I don’t want you to scare him off, either.”

“Why not? He’s being obnoxious. Knowing you’re committed and taking a swing anyway? He’s obviously not respecting that.”

“Maybe he wanted to hear it for himself,” Dani supposes. “Maybe he thought you were just being protective.”

“Dani, why in the world are you defending him so much?”

For a time, she’s silent. Dani unfolds her legs beneath the sheets until she’s supine. “If we’re too harsh,” she answers, “he won’t want to come back, and... that’s one less person I’m helping.” She quiets again to consider her next words. “I miss teaching. So much. If I can’t teach kids anymore, then... I’ll take whatever I can get. Even if it’s just three people. Even if it’s just for a few months.”

Jamie shifts to lie on her side, propping herself up on a forearm wedged between her head and the pillow. Noticing how her movement has pulled their shared sheets down from Dani’s chin, she readjusts them and thoughtfully asks, “It really makes you happy?” At Dani’s wordless confirmation, she adds, “Do you ever think about getting another teaching job? Doesn’t have to be kids. Maybe you could tutor at the school, professionally. I could run the shop myself. I’d have to hire some people, but—”

“It’s okay,” Dani stops her. She grasps the hand still holding the bedsheet over her chest. “Really. I like being a florist, too. Maybe just as much.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

At her assurance, Jamie draws close and touches her forehead to Dani’s. The intimate distance reduces her voice to a whisper when she says, “I want you to be happy. You know that, right?”

Warmth spreads through her chest. “Mm-hm,” Dani replies. She knows it well. Her love for Jamie would never have reached the depths it presently contains if it were _not_ true. 

“And you know, that if you wanted to teach, I would do _anything_ to accommodate that? You know that, too, right? That I’d even be nice to that twat for you?”

A tiny, gentle breath carries Dani’s laugh. “Thank you.”

Jamie presses a doting kiss to her cheek and asks, “Has anyone ever told you? Why you’re such a good teacher?”

Not particularly. She shakes her head. 

“It’s not that you know the material well,” says Jamie. “I mean, you do, but that doesn’t matter. You _get_ to people because you teach them how to hope. How to value things they hadn’t noticed before, including things they hadn’t seen in themselves. And that is worth _so_ much more than a teacher who stands there pouring things into you like you’re some passive, empty vessel. There’s no thirst, just compliance. But people like you, Dani... you make them want it. You make them curious. You give them passion.”

Dani holds her close, tucking her chin over Jamie’s shoulder. Her hands lovingly roam her back and she resolves, that even if her makeshift class of three should dwindle to two, or one, that too will still matter, and her efforts will never be in vain. Even one life is a universe of its own, worthy of cultivating a lifetime of inquisitiveness, self-confidence, and inspiration for.

Jamie does not drop out. 


	7. Chapter 7

**xiv. (being seen)**

Within the grove of department store clothing racks, Jamie plays mannequin for Dani, who applies a collared blouse to her chest. She estimates its fit by extending the sleeves to her wrists and positioning the seams as they would naturally lay upon her. 

Dani says, “You know, she’s never said sorry. Not once, not even after all this time. Maybe she never will. Maybe this is as close as she’s going to get.” 

“Well, they say actions speak louder than words,” Jamie volunteers. “But I reckon whoever said that was never owed an apology. Is that one for you or me?”

“Do you want it?” She lifts the blouse away and replaces it with another promising candidate.

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Then we’ll have to share it, because I want it, too.” A faint smile crosses Dani’s lips as she aligns the next shirt’s waistline with Jamie’s, then resumes her previous trail of thought. “Do you think it’s ever too late? To make amends with someone?”

Jamie spares the question a moment of consideration. “No,” she replies. “But you both have to want it. Do _you_ want it?”

Dani doesn’t possess an immediate answer. The disagreement she had with her mother over the phone last month was decidedly unpleasant. Years of frothing neglect and absence boiled to the surface without warning, and neither were emotionally well-equipped enough to tread it with decorum. Blame, denial, excuses. All these hallmarks of gravely wounded relations, catapulted across the thousand miles spanning between them. 

As a child, Dani imagined that when her father died, her mother went with him, as though spiritually entangled by the vows of their troubled marriage - a contract more binding than either anticipated. Karen withdrew into herself. She worked, she drank, she dated. And Dani was invisible. During those years, Dani clung to Eddie and his family if only to validate the opacity of her existence through their acknowledgement.

To this day, her mother refuses to answer for any of it. She acts as if it never happened. In light of the progress made during their shared Christmas a few years ago, Dani is devastated by this setback. She isn’t sure they’ll ever recover from it. 

It isn’t a matter of forgiveness. Dani is very much capable of forgiveness. It is the _perpetuation_ of hurt - her mother’s attempt to contort history into an absurd farce where Dani’s sense of abandonment was a result of mishandled grief - that stokes her indignity. 

As if the situation were not already overcomplicated, Karen called last week to beseech a truce. A reset. She wants to visit Dani, to witness her life, to partake in it. While the sentiment is appreciated, Dani can’t help but feel that it’s too little, too late. Not to mention that a visit would only constitute an intrusion into a life so thoroughly and intentionally disparate from the one Dani left behind.

“Dani?”

“I like this one,” she muses aloud, smoothing the brown rayon fabric of a buttoned shirt over Jamie’s shoulders. “That looks really good on you.”

“Dani,” Jamie repeats. “You’ve got to decide.”

Dani briefly shuts her eyes and sighs. “If I say yes, you know what that means, right? I don’t think we can hide it from her. She’s going to want to see the apartment.” At the clicking of hangers generated by another shopper a few racks over, she lowers her voice to say, “We only have one bed.”

“Times are tough?” Jamie suggests to little effect. “Seriously, though - it’s not like she’s staying with us, right? There’s no room. I felt bad enough putting Owen up on the couch those couple of times. We could just skip the bedroom altogether. Keep the door shut. Say it’s a mess, it’s indecent, the such.”

“While we keep everything else spotless? Yeah, I don’t know about that one.” Dani slings her chosen items over one arm. “Do you need shoes or anything while we’re here?”

Fifteen minutes later, Dani is sitting on a bench between dressing room stalls, tracing the carpeting’s drab pattern with an absent gaze. She digs her fingernails into the aromatic flesh of a clementine, peeling the rind into the largest sections she can manage. Periodically, pairs of rejected pants fold over the side of the stall to her left. Jamie shuffles about within. There’s only one other person in the vicinity, shut into the stall at the far end of the row.

“Can’t believe September’s already here,” Jamie remarks to dispel the melancholic silence. “Back to school for me. It’s not so bad. One more year and I’ll be a certified genius.” 

Dani’s face, wiped blank by deep thought, is breached by a smile. She’s so proud of Jamie. She tells her often enough to rouse suspicion of mockery. But Dani means it, the same way she means _I love you_ the tenth, hundredth, millionth time. These words can never be worn or diminished by overuse. They are eternal, unwavering constants. 

She slips a slice of clementine between her lips and endures unexpected tartness as her thoughts turn to potentially exposing Jamie to one of her greatest traumas: familial abandonment, or the threat of it. Granted, it’s not her own family they’re facing this time. But the pair have grown so entwined with each other’s welfare that Jamie shall reflect Dani’s anguish, and they, like a room of mirrors echoing infinity, will have to take great care not to let their greatest strength undo them. 

They’ll need to be ready. Both of them.

Between bites, Dani asks, “What would you do if your mother contacted you?”

She hears Jamie take a breath before replying, “I’d tell her to fuck off.”

“Really? No conversation whatsoever?”

“She ruined my life,” says Jamie, hanging another pair of jeans over the stall. “What’s there to say?”

“You wouldn’t want to hear why?”

“Oh, I _know_ why. Because she didn’t give a rat’s arse about anyone but herself. Don’t care how unhappy she was with her marriage. She had kids. You’re supposed to love your kids. Society would crumble if people didn’t, and that’s exactly what happened to us. Our whole world fell apart.”

Dani chews, nodding despite Jamie being unable to see it. She hears the stall door creak open, and out emerges Jamie carrying a few agreeable pairs. After submitting her rejects to a designated rack, she sits down beside Dani on the bench and accepts the clementine slice offered to her. 

“Your mum wasn’t really there for you,” Jamie says. “But she made sure you had a safe place to sleep. She didn’t leave you to practically starve. She didn’t hate you. And that is far more than I ever had. It’s worth something, Dani. How _much_ it’s worth, though... that’s up to you.” She pops the wedge into her mouth and makes a face at the tartness Dani failed to warn her about. 

Their shoulders and legs touch, secretly leaning into each other. Dani looks down at their shoes: her leather block heels alongside Jamie’s black brogue boots. She studies the hazy glitter of deep-set ceiling lights in Jamie’s eyelashes, and placid hands folded in her lap. The faint rise of tendons and veins, already visible from Jamie’s lean stature, slowly gains prominence with time. Her graying hair, once well-hidden beneath covering layers, has reached the surface in rare, lone strands. Dani finds comfort in all of it. 

“What about you?” she asks. “Do you feel ready?”

Jamie purses her lips in thought. “I feel ready to try,” she confesses, quietly. “We’re having a good run, you and me. I think I owe us that much.”

In their relative privacy, Dani reaches for Jamie’s hand and affectionately brushes a thumb over her knuckles. 

The day before her mother’s flight, Dani meticulously cleans the apartment. Jamie - miserably conscripted into the effort - is concerned. She thinks Dani is slowly working herself into a nervous episode, and while there may be latent truth in her suspicion, it detracts nothing from Dani’s essential goal of appearing as proper, decent people. For how can there be anything wrong with them, if their home is clean and beautiful? How could their proclivities degrade them, if that hallowed gallery of their lives shines with dignity and integrity? 

A home is a reflection of the conscience. They are not careless. They are not ashamed. They will tend their home as they do their relationship: with pride, love, and reverence. 

That night, they sit together at the kitchen island with empty dinner plates and Dani’s rough itinerary before them. She reviews how the following day will unfold under ideal conditions.

Monday. It’ll be business as usual, until Dani must leave the shop early to retrieve her mother from the airport. She’ll take a cab. They’ll check in at the hotel. At six o’clock, Jamie will rendezvous with them at a restaurant in the city for their reservation, and she will _not_ forget or be late. Afterward, they’ll provide a tour of the apartment. Dani will drive her mother back to the hotel at the end of the night. And somewhere along the way, it shall be assumed that certain truths will come to light. 

When Dani’s sentences grow terse and rigid, Jamie takes hold of her hands and says, simply, “Hey. It’s going to be okay,” and Dani feels exactly as she did years ago when they first crossed the Atlantic together, when that tidal wave of fear and darkness enveloped her. But there was Jamie in the middle of the storm, an unmovable lighthouse guiding her safely to shore. 

The next day, Dani is uncomfortable. She can’t say she expected different, while sitting in the back of a cab with her mother, ferried through city streets gelling over with the pastels of twilight on the horizon. Neither can she help but wonder what else she might’ve done to better prepare. 

To start, she might not have piled onto their attempted reconciliation another sizable obstacle. Dani rescinds her regret; if that alone can be overcome, she’ll graciously consider all wounds mended. If it _cannot_ be overcome... Well, she doesn’t prefer to ponder the state of their relationship in that scenario. 

Conversation is sparse, stilted. Dani asks how her flight was, and Karen responds in three spartan words, “It was bearable.” When Karen inquires about Vermont’s tourist attractions, Dani disingenuously answers, “This is kind of it.”

Neither address the conflict skulking just out of view. Selective avoidance runs in their shared blood, particularly compounded in Dani through both her lineages. It ought to be an Olympic sport, she thinks, because the Claytons would take home gold every time. 

She and Karen have more in common than she’s prepared to admit.

Dani steals a sidelong glance. Her mother’s style of dress is, per habit, seemly and refined. Years ago, such particular outward maintenance was incredibly dissonant with her wallowing in the dregs of a wine glass. In retrospect, it was rather impressive for her to have donned that illusion every day without perceivable fault. There’s a certain strength in that upkeep, Dani considers, disregarding for a moment the destructive context.

Her appreciation originates in a place of understanding. Like her mother, Dani too hides away her troubles in layers of current fashion, hoping the smoke and mirrors of graceful hair and clothes will pressure the ugliness within to conform. 

Perhaps Dani treated their apartment yesterday with that same mindset, while unfairly coercing her life with Jamie into the role of _ugly secret_ to be contained. They are far from it. They are the most beautiful thing Dani has ever known. The unfortunate reality is that an outside perspective may find the designation appropriate. 

“You mentioned Jane would be joining us for dinner?”

Dani wakes from rumination to respond, “Jamie. Yes. Is that okay?”

“Oh, that’s fine. I actually look forward to meeting her.”

Abruptly, Dani considers the distinct possibility of her mother looking forward to Jamie’s company as a convenient alternative to hers.

When they arrive at the restaurant - Italian-owned, locally beloved for their seafood - Jamie is already loitering in the waiting area, looking fetching in the recently dry-cleaned rayon shirt Dani found for her weeks ago. She strides over to them and stubs out her cigarette in a standing ashtray near the entrance. Uncertainty tugs at the edges of Jamie’s nervous smile as she extends a hand to Karen, who gladly shakes it. 

Karen pats her hand twice and says, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Jamie responds in kind, “Likewise. Dani’s spoken of you quite a bit. Don’t worry, all good things.” She slips her hands into her back pockets to quell their discomposure. “Shall we, then? Our table’s ready a minute ago.” 

Dani catches her mother’s surprise. Initially, she can’t identify its cause. Belated realization only strikes while following the hostess to their booth: she’s reacting to Jamie’s accent. Dani hadn’t mentioned that detail before in a deliberate attempt to obscure as much as possible about the circumstances of their meeting. After so long, the secret itself bears more consequence than its content. 

They file into the seat curving around a circular corner table and order a round of craft cocktails. Dani sits between them. She braces herself for the attrition of awkward silence, but Karen’s curiosity fills the void - a simultaneous blessing and curse.

“So how long have you lived in the States? Not long, I’d imagine?” 

Jamie folds her hands on the table while taking a mental tally of the years. “It’ll be six years, next month,” she answers with an affirming nod. “Long enough to feel settled, but never long enough to accustom myself to the portion sizes.”

That amuses Karen. “Can I ask what brought you here? And Vermont, of all places? As someone who nearly forgot this state existed until Dani moved here, I’m surprised it was ever on your radar.”

Jamie sends Dani an uneasy glance. Her eyes are vivid with apprehension. She doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to proceed without making a colossal mess five minutes in. 

Dani accepts her deferment. “Actually... we, um—” She forces a brittle smile. “Jamie and I met while I was working at the manor. We were both working at the manor. I guess you could say we got along well, then we had an idea for a business, and... Life’s been great. Can’t complain.” 

“It’s pretty lucrative,” Jamie jumps back in, poised to redirect the topic. “Money’s been decent these last couple of years. I even hired a few people this spring to take some weight off us. I’m doing night school right now, you see, and the curriculum’s getting harder as I go. I find myself needing more time for it. Turns out I’m rubbish at maths. But Dani’s not. She’s been helping me out.”

There’s silence. Karen is patently divided between processing what each has told her: Dani’s revisionist admission about her and Jamie’s meeting contradicting her previous claim of responding to a roommate ad, battling Jamie’s swift divulgence specifically designed to overwhelm. Before she can assign meaning or intent, their drinks arrive along with an opportunity to order food. Dani decides to tip generously for their waiter’s punctuality alone. 

She can’t comprehend how they’ll go about telling the truth when the time comes.

“So,” Jamie speaks again, “Dani tells me you’re retired now? Would you mind me asking what your occupation was?”

“I was an executive secretary for a home insurance company,” Karen replies, an undercurrent of pride in her voice as she taps her fingernails against the base of her cocktail glass. “Kept the whole office in shape, at least for the last ten of my thirty years there. It was a good gig. It definitely came in handy when Dani’s father died. I knew people who knew how to frame the incident right. We were able to get his life insurance payout without too much hassle.”

While Jamie’s eyebrows raise at the grim anecdote, Dani suggests they speak of other things. Unfortunately, that places Jamie back in the spotlight.

“It sounds like you’re doing quite well for two women at your ages,” says Karen. “Good for you. How old are you, Jamie? Somewhere around Dani’s age, by the look of it? How old are you again, Dani?”

“I’m thirty-three,” Dani says, struggling to preserve false cheer as she turns to regard her mother. “My birthday was last month.”

Incidentally, forgetting her birthday was the spark that ignited their fight in the first place.

“Oh, that’s right. The end number follows the year.”

Jamie lowers her drink from her lips after sipping to disguise a passing smirk. “I’m a wee bit older. A year and some change.”

Karen asks, frankly, “You never married either?”

If asked such a question moments earlier, Jamie might’ve choked on her cocktail. She scrambles to transmute her startled expression into levity and humility. 

“Me? No, it— just isn’t for me, I suppose. But.” She lightly swills her glass on the way to having another taste, adding before she does, “I am happily spoken for.” 

That brightens Karen’s mood. Perhaps it’s her wishful thinking, to presume the presence of a man as one of very few conventional qualities about their life. Dani can’t tell for certain whether her mother is onto them yet, or whether it’s even crossed her mind. While Karen is no fool, she _does_ suffer from lifelong obliviousness where it concerns her daughter. 

Dani hardly speaks beyond mediation and to rescue Jamie wherever appropriate. She can’t interact with Jamie the way they’re used to, and she isn’t too inclined to converse with her mother out of pure stubbornness. Instead, she finds herself staring at the light of the hanging lamp suspended over their table glistening in her drink. Their voices sound far away and muted, as though she were eavesdropping from underwater. 

Their food arrives and they dine in relative concord. By the end, they’re laughing. Jamie is telling stories about the pub she lived above in Bly. There was a fire once - a small one - caused by one drunken man hitting another over the head with an oil lantern. A salesman allegedly from Vienna stopped by one day to swindle half the patrons by selling them fake silks. Then there was the time when a runaway hen took up residence in the pub for a week until the owner responded to the angry notice they posted outside. Karen supplies her input and jokes along.

Dani’s hope flickers weakly as she dares to think that with some luck, effort, and tact, everything will turn out all right. 

Later, Dani leads them into the apartment, gesturing loftily about in presentation of the immaculate surfaces, orderly clutter, and sensible furniture placement. Karen’s initial evaluation is generous. She deems the space pleasant and homely. Dani supervises her exploration of the front room while Jamie peels away into the kitchen, saying, “We get plenty of natural light here, with the windows facing south. I raise a lot of happy houseplants. I’ve managed to keep some since the spring of ‘89, when we first moved here. That one over _there_ , though, has overstayed its welcome. Murder’s been on my mind.”

“Make yourself at home,” Dani says. “Can I get you anything?”

Karen investigates a series of framed photographs standing on a console table in the company of a fresh bouquet of yellow roses, daisies, and huckleberry. Featured are Dani and Jamie, Owen, Hannah, Henry and the kids, and Mikey and Elaine. 

“No thank you,” she replies at length, drifting over to the shallow bay window. “I’ll be fine.” She parts the drapes and peeks out to assess the view of the side street beyond an iron fence and a healthy patch of grass and trees insulating the apartments. 

Dani asks, “Would you want to see the shop tomorrow? You can drop by anytime during the day. Maybe I could show you how we make new arrangements. There’s color theory and a whole process—”

“I just might do that,” Karen stops her, remaining pensive. She finds a book left on the coffee table’s shelf - floriography - and flips through a few pages.

Dani exchanges worry with Jamie, who stands on the other side of the kitchen island about to open a wine cooler. Thinking better of it, Jamie quietly returns the bottle to the refrigerator’s door. 

She can’t grasp her mother’s abrupt change in demeanor. They’d all been so talkative during the drive over, but the instant Karen stepped through the door, the climate grew dour and contemplative. 

Dani wishes to know where they’ve compromised themselves. Was it their shoes and coats, harmoniously jumbled together? Was it their photos, portraying no apparent significant others among their loved ones, while reserving plentiful space for themselves? Is it the blissful lack of distinctive ownership exhibited throughout the entire apartment, something they could never emulate at this point in their relationship, even purposely?

The way it happens is gradual, then altogether at once, when Karen steps past the kitchen until she’s peering down the short hallway. Dani shadows her, hands suddenly clammy with anxiety. Her fingernails bite into the flesh of her palms as Karen ventures further.

Dani has intentionally left the bedroom door open. Despite how nerve-wracking it is to watch Karen pause at the frame and gaze into the darkness, where light bleeds in far enough to delineate the shape of furniture, Dani is glad to have done so. If she hadn’t, she may have never told her mother. Never.

Even so, the supreme horror of being seen is agonizing. It is being flayed alive, exposed to condemnation for merely existing. And when Karen says nothing, it’s somehow worse than inquiry. Dani would rather face a tirade than silence - that veil of death where debate dies, stillborn, a forgone conclusion. Where silence falls, doors shut. 

They return to the front room. While Karen settles into the armchair and runs her hands thoughtfully over the twill upholstery, Dani detours into the kitchen, telling Jamie on a grave whisper as she passes through, “It’s time. Come with me?”

Jamie appears vaguely ill at the prospect, but she draws a deep breath, nods, and follows Dani out to the sofa. They sit down. Karen is awaiting them, expecting them. That, too, is a hurdle for Dani to overcome while gathering the strength to speak. 

“We, um.” Dani looks down at the wood grain of the coffee table. She can’t bear to face her mother directly. “We have something to tell you. It’s... It’s something that’s been true for a long time. There were, well... obvious reasons why I didn’t say anything sooner, but I’m telling you now, and I hope you can appreciate that. Because this is _not_ an easy thing to say.”

Her voice falters and she swallows, tears stinging her eyes. Jamie is an inch away, but she may as well have been on the other side of the world for their lack of touching. 

“I’m not asking you to like it,” Dani says, “or even understand it. I’m just... I’m just asking you to love me, even still, when I tell you... When I _tell you,_ that Jamie and I have been... together... for several years now. Like, how a man and woman would be, except—”

“I know your meaning,” Karen interjects, bleak. “I don’t live under a rock. I’ve seen this before, here and there.”

Dani holds her breath, finally confronting her mother’s stare with reddening eyes. She feels Jamie’s hand at her shoulder, gentle and steadying. 

“Dani, I know you took Edmund’s death hard. Really hard. It hurt you deeply - we all saw it. But it hurts _me_ to see that this was your solution. You never did process grief well.”

The insinuation riles her. “You think this has anything to do with Eddie?”

“Why else would you want to live like this? You’ve made your life so unnecessarily difficult!”

“I have _always_ been like this!” Dani’s voice climbs. “Whether you noticed or not!”

“You loved Edmund! You were going to marry him!”

“I broke up with him!” Her confession demands silence from all present to hear it. Then Dani continues, quieter, “Before he died. Right before he died. So, there. Now you two are the only people in the world who know that. At the time, I just... I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t feel what I was supposed to. Then I learned why. And you know what? I did love Eddie. He was my best friend. I mourned him. I missed him.” She pauses to blink away her tears and draw a shuddering breath. “But I could never have been his wife. It would’ve killed me.”

A twinge of true sympathy crosses her mother’s features at their shared experience of being with men they shouldn’t have. If nothing else, she can at least understand that heavy woe. But she isn’t ready to abide Dani’s reason for it. 

“And what about you?” Karen turns to Jamie. “What do you have to say about all this? You seemed like you had an ounce of sense about you.”

Dani starts to object, “Don’t you dare—” but Jamie squeezes her shoulder and assures her, “It’s okay.”

Jamie retrieves her hand to wring them together as she composes her reply. “I have one thing to say,” she declares, “because nothing more needs to be said. See, I have _never_ loved another person as much as I love Dani, and I don’t think I ever will again. She’s filled my life with a kind of joy I didn’t think existed. There’s no doubt. Every day I wake up thinking I’m maybe the luckiest person in the world, on several accounts. I believe that. I honestly do. And that’s all I have to say.”

“You know,” Karen says, nodding, “I believe you. I believe both of you. And that’s what makes this so hard for me.” She rises to gather her purse and coat from where they rest on the sofa’s arm. “Thank you for the dinner and hospitality. It really was a pleasure. Goodnight, Dani. I’ll call a cab.”

Dani rises to pursue her, but cannot speak or act quickly enough to stop her departure. The door shuts and she’s left standing there, cold and tearful. Jamie approaches to rest a hand on her back. 

“I don’t know what to do,” she despairs, her tone fringed with panic. “What do I do?”

Jamie replies, “You’ve done all you can. You said what you needed to say. It’s up to her now.”

Dani snivels and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand before turning to face Jamie. She holds her arms around her waist and is held in return. “Thank you,” Dani says, still trembling, “for being there for me. You were really brave, you know?”

“Me? Dani, you’d fend off a bloody _lion_ while I cowered and still call me the brave one.”

A short, stuttering laugh escapes her. She rests her cheek on Jamie’s shoulder. “Still, it means a lot to me. I don’t know how I would’ve gone through with it without you.”

“My being there was long overdue, anyway,” Jamie reasons. “We’re getting too old for it. World’s getting too old for it. The hiding, pretending.” She kisses Dani’s head. “Don’t worry, baby, she’ll come round.” 

Dani can tell by her voice that Jamie hasn’t vested much confidence in her words, but she’s grateful to hear them anyway.

The next morning, Dani culls flowers past their prime from displays, counts the till and safe, and stocks a shelf with floral bar soaps that arrived in the last shipment. She cleans the glass windows of the refrigeration unit and serves the occasional customer. Meanwhile, Jamie trains a new part-time hire, Amy, a recent high school graduate. She teaches her how to ring up items and wrap bouquets. 

Earlier that year, Dani assumed herself the one to train employees. However, that hasn’t been the case. While Jamie wouldn’t dare tell Dani how to operate their business out of implicit trust in her judgement, she likes things done a particular way. Anyone on their payroll must meet their standards and respect their conventions. According to Jamie’s philosophy, a garden can only enjoy the freedoms of artistic expression if it is maintained by steady, unerring hands. There are strict schedules to fulfill. There are rules in nature, the same rules that govern the rising and setting of the sun. Such rules exist here, too.

Suffice it to say, the employees have gravitated toward Dani’s more forgiving style of guidance. This mystifies Jamie. Dani hasn’t the heart to tell her that they think she’s mean, so she’ll have to frame the issue as a matter of _word choice_. 

It is monumentally disconcerting for Amy, whose impression of Jamie thus far has been of a hard and fastidious British woman fifteen years her senior, to witness her instinctively duck behind a shelf at the sight of a particular customer entering the shop; a reaction befitting the evasion of a projectile.

Dani catches the baffling movement out of the corner of her eye. Jamie comes out of hiding as quickly as her reflex put her there, chagrined, but ever observant of mind over whim. She takes a step forward and looks at Dani from across the store to assess her reaction, but Dani has been too preoccupied with Jamie’s strange behavior to isolate its cause. 

Her eyes widen when she turns to the door. It’s her mother, thoroughly surveying the space before approaching. No one speaks. Not until Karen places her purse on the counter and retrieves her wallet. 

After a beat, she asks Dani, “Do you contract a courier service? Do you deliver?”

For a few seconds, Dani remains incapable of speech. She replies, stiff with caution, “Yes. We do.”

At a distance, Jamie stands sentry, her attention unevenly divided between the front counter and her disoriented trainee. 

“I’d like to order something,” says Karen. “A nice arrangement for my daughter. I’d like to include a card, too. Something along the lines of... I know I haven’t been the greatest mother in the world. I don’t understand her and I may never understand her. But she’s still my daughter. And if she’s happy, truly happy, she’ll stay that way whether I’m here or not. I might as well be here. For what it’s worth.”

Trying not to cry, especially in front of the new girl, Dani produces an order form for Karen to fill out.

It is worth something. It is worth everything.


	8. Chapter 8

**xv. (afterglow)**

By the fall of 1994, Jamie’s modest degree hangs framed beside Dani’s on a wall in their bedroom. She cries at first sight of it, because notable achievements aren’t meant for people like her. That was the caustic impression she lived under for years. Broken people need only survive, and aspirations are reserved for the intact. 

Dani holds her all afternoon - or what seems like it - and assures her she was never broken. People aren’t vases. People aren’t made of glass. They are made of flesh and hope, and they _heal_ while objects cannot. 

Fortunately, Jamie’s tears contain far more happiness than sorrow. Even without a tangible application, the last two years have uplifted her. Her preexisting aptitudes have acquired new skills and information to wield to their benefit. She will prove a better business owner, a better person, and a better partner for Dani.

With her face buried in her neck, Dani tells her with as much profundity as she can muster, “Jamie, you are already _everything_ I could ask you to be.”

That sentiment suspends like a mist over their lives for the next few months, ever-present and delicately yearning for a predicate Dani hasn’t recognized as missing. 

There’s a house party, hosted by other recent graduates Jamie acquainted herself with during her studies. Dani’s unofficial math students - a humble coalition of eight in total who sought her tutoring through Jamie’s recommendation - are in attendance to surprise her with roses. Including Jamie, she’s influenced the lives of nine adults for the better, and they ensure she understands this in no uncertain terms. It’s a moving gesture. Dani sheds tears and hugs every one of them. 

They drink and socialize. Jamie leads her to a small group of apparent significance. As Dani realizes, these people are _like them_. They’re eclectic, funny, and full of life. It’s the first time she’s ever been openly introduced as Jamie’s girlfriend. Freedom flutters delightfully in her chest, like caged birds taking nervous flight after a lifetime of imprisonment. 

Jamie is sent home with something in a yellow clasp envelope. It’s from the people _like them_. When Jamie peeks at its contents, her cheeks stain red. She wryly shakes her head and shuts the flap.

Dani, curious to see, reaches for the envelope, but Jamie dodges her and holds it captive. She can only fend her off for so long. Once Dani starts poking her in the ribs, she loses both determination and custody of the envelope within seconds. 

“It was _not_ my idea,” Jamie disavows as Dani investigates. “They just handed it to me!”

Fearless, Dani withdraws a magazine in its entirety. Printed on the glossy cover is the cause of Jamie’s blushing: a glamorous woman in black lingerie, posing seductively on crimson satin sheets. Upon flipping through at random, Dani discovers the pages to be filled with similar images, among them countless raunchy scenes involving two women; _three_ on rare occasion. Articles accompany each exhibition, providing explanations and advice to those wishing to imitate the pictured acts.

Dani is too shocked and transfixed to laugh. 

They view it huddled together in bed the following night, reclining comfortably on their pillows and half-drunk on red wine. Jamie has slipped her hand between Dani’s legs. She grasps her thigh but behaves herself for the time being. Meanwhile, Dani holds the magazine open for them.

There’s something illicit about their prying curiosity. Dani can’t easily shake her prudish upbringing, where everyone knew what happened behind closed doors but wouldn’t dare discuss or normalize it. 

One image has them gawking. Dani lingers on a page depicting a woman, minimally clothed, bent over the lap of another dressed to propriety. The second woman’s hand is raised in the air, mid-strike. Realizing just how long they’ve been staring, Dani begins to flip past, only to be interrupted by Jamie saying, “Hold on. Just a minute.”

She stops, returns to the page, and smiles. “What, you like that one?”

“I’m only looking,” Jamie replies, unconvincingly. “Reading the, uh... the article.”

Relaxed by wine to the point of boldness, Dani asks, “Which one would you rather be?”

Concentration draws Jamie’s brow as her foggy gaze roams the pages. At length, she confesses, “I don’t know.” She hardly breaks an incredulous whisper. “I think I’d just like to watch.”

Dani loves gaining insight into what strikes the right chords for her, even what Jamie herself cannot understand or articulate yet. She wants to learn every nuance and make extensive use of them. 

Once Jamie is satisfied with her viewing, Dani turns to an even more disruptive page. A beautiful woman is shedding a fur coat. She is otherwise completely bare, save for a swell of magenta protruding from her lap, harnessed in place. 

Jamie utters, “Blimey.” 

They reserve a minute for their consideration. Dani feels warmer than she planned to this early on. She’s certain Jamie is aware through the hand residing so close to its point of origin.

With some humored trepidation, Jamie inquires, “So, what’s the consensus on this one?” 

“I’m kind of conflicted,” Dani responds truthfully from the depths of a daze, “but I can’t stop staring. Have you ever done something like that?”

Jamie gives a short, nervous laugh. “No, can’t say that I have.”

“Would you want to?”

She casts Dani a baffled look, surprised by her amenability. Dani has surprised herself, too. It _must_ be the wine, she thinks. Impulsivity is typically her first symptom of inebriation, followed immediately by amorous tendencies. Then, drowsiness emerges to curtail all the commotion.

Following some additional contemplation, Jamie asks, “If we _did_ , hypothetically... which one? For you?” She peers at the side of Dani’s face, awaiting her thoughtful answer as it visibly forms in the subtleties of her expression.

“Both.” Quietly, she adds, “On top, though. For both.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm,” Dani hums, her bottom lip absently caught between her teeth.

“That’s... pretty hot, actually.”

Dani tries not to imagine it overmuch; the presence of Jamie’s hand has become equally appealing and excruciating. Either way, she wishes it would slide higher along her thigh. “How would you even get something like that?”

“Very discreetly, I’d imagine.”

The next page is a continuation of the last, this time making use of the principal subject. 

Their sex life, by Dani’s description, has always been frequent, satisfying, and mutually indulgent. She’s never harbored complaints. They communicate. They amalgamate love with physicality. They respect limitations. It’s curious, then, how something perceived as more or less faultless can be further elevated through diversification. 

They try things. Nothing too out of the ordinary; they’d seem entirely bland against the magazine’s final pages. What matters is the _exchange_ in the face of uncharted territory, and how they stay close when navigating it together. For what is sex, if not a conversation? Over weeks they speak of trust, intuition, and vulnerability in the bedroom. And they willingly give it, aching to see what lies deeper and unsaid. 

They’ve had this same conversation before, years ago. While Dani doesn’t understand why they’re having it again - not quite yet - she won’t interrupt them to overanalyze it. 

One notable failure is an attempt to manipulate Dani’s breathing. As per Jamie’s custom, she clarifies exactly what she’ll do and to what effect. In theory it sounds attractive, and Dani is eager to try. But the moment Jamie’s hand closes around her throat, an old horror leaps from the dust to assail her with fear and dread: Dani remembers the Lady of the Lake dragging her through the manor, vision spotting, death’s door creaking open to admit her. She shoves Jamie away, apologizes, and explains. They never revisit that technique again. 

But the successes are exciting and well worth the disappointments. They’re having a good time. They’re having _fun_. Dani will never tire of hair pulling, or giggling as Jamie knots one of her bandanas around her wrists, or being pulled back from the edge in time to build toward a greater payoff. 

Dani especially appreciates their dedication now, with one hand splayed on Jamie’s sternum, holding her down, while the other grips the flare of her pelvis to stabilize the drive of her hips. She’s taken immense care not to hurt Jamie. It requires some time to accustom herself to an extension of her body she can’t feel, so she starts slow, prepares her generously, and uses the appropriate aid to make her as comfortable as possible.

Patience benefits them. Jamie likes it. A lot. She’s vocal and swears often, curling wistful fingertips against Dani’s abdomen as she stumbles over another shuddering, fretful peak, as Dani pushes her - pushes _them_ \- through the exposing uncertainty.

Over breakfast, hours later, Jamie shrugs and says it was _okay_. Whatever reason she reserves for understating her favorable response is a mystery. Pride, stigma, embarrassment - all are possibilities, and all are needless. 

When asked, Jamie concedes a tiny laugh. “I’ve two minds about it. One here—” She claps a hand over her heart. “—and one... elsewhere. It’s not quite you, exactly. I like feeling close to _you_.” 

They don’t do it again. Despite this resolution, throughout the day Dani periodically catches Jamie gazing at her in dreamy adoration, inspiring multiple exchanges of “What?” and “Nothing.” 

Her behavior is enigmatic. It only makes sense upon considering that she admires Dani for accompanying her to try at all.

They talk about it, joke about it, tease each other about it. All of it. There is still much to learn and complexities to decipher, still plenty of opportunities to crawl closer to one another. And they do so in trusting comfort. 

One frigid night buried deep in December, Dani finally realizes what their months-long conversation has been about. 

Jamie’s fingers are woven into her hair, enforcing access to Dani’s exposed neck. She bites and kisses and sucks her skin, slides a hand beneath the underwire of her bra to palm her breast. Dani whines, blushing fiercely at the pain blooming at her pulse point. It’s almost too much. She resists Jamie’s grip to no avail. An assertive tug on her hair keeps her still until Jamie decides to relent. 

If placed in the same situation years ago, Jamie would’ve stopped, flustered by fear of hurting her. She knows now that Dani delights in the pressure building between her legs the longer she endures the bruising attention. Dani will tell her to stop if she needs her to. Tonight, she does nothing of the sort.

After an eternity, Jamie pulls away from the abused spot with a tender parting kiss. “You up for something fun?” she asks.

Dani nods, too bothered to communicate approval through words for fear of how her voice might sound. 

Lips trail down her chest, her stomach. When they reach the waistband of her underwear, Dani tries to help remove that last barrier between them, but Jamie catches her hands and mutters low in her throat, “I’ll take care of it.”

Although uncertain of what that portends, Dani acquiesces. She trusts her implicitly. Jamie resumes her path, kissing through plain white cotton. Shoulders touch the backs of Dani’s thighs. Hands smooth over the curve of her hips and take steady hold. Jamie is soft, unhurried, and muted against her; a stark contrast to the rough treatment from a minute ago. When she pulls back to tend her inner thighs with adoring lips, Dani melts into the warmth of her care. Arousal pools in restless anticipation. 

She isn’t sure how ready Jamie wants her, and even less sure of what more she can offer to meet that requisite. Every successive kiss and caress that greets dampening cloth demands more of her still. Her breathing strains. Soft whimpers escape her. A sudden, unmistakeable graze of teeth makes her gasp and angle her hips forward, offering herself completely. 

Dani lowers her hands. One grasps Jamie’s shoulder, close to her neck. The other clutches the base of her head, keeping her near as Dani starts to rock forward at a self-indulgent rhythm. She moans at a few fingertips pressing against her, teasing what she’s been denied. It drives her mad. Her needs have long since advanced from foreplay, yet Jamie keeps them moored in it, tempered and subdued. She feels like she misses Jamie, somehow, even as she touches her.

Jamie’s hips grind down into the mattress, sharing the desperation; reveling in it. She groans. The sound fills Dani, reaches deep into her core, textured like a touch. Eager to feel it again, Dani grips her hair, scrapes her fingernails against the nape of Jamie’s neck. At her behest, Jamie pins a hand between her frustrated hips and the bed, inspiring herself to provide what Dani has asked of her. 

With the right pressure and some determination, Dani gets there. As soon as she does, Jamie tugs down her underwear to admit herself. Dani, still swept up in the delicious shivers racing through her, is entirely receptive. She’s laid bare, open, and sensitive to Jamie’s thorough persistence, taking everything once deferred. Winding down is lost as a priority. 

Unexpectedly, Dani feels a new pull of desire overwhelming her as hotly and spontaneously as the spread of fire. Within seconds her pleading sighs are straining through the barrier of audibility, and her blunt nails are dragging over Jamie’s upper back. She’s there all over again, unable to distinguish where the first ends the second begins.

Jamie drapes an arm across Dani’s hips and rests her head on her stomach, where she remains a comforting weight. Gradually, breathing and heartbeats settle. Dani fondly strokes her shoulders and the back of her neck, soothing any scratches inadvertently left behind. No more than a minute passes before Jamie leaves a kiss behind on warm skin and rises.

Dani vastly prefers it when she stays longer. She likes having Jamie pressed against her while basking in the afterglow, appreciating the ease flooding her limbs and the dissipation of all urgent thoughts. Shutting her eyes, she relishes it alone. 

When Jamie returns to the bedside a short time later, she’s perfectly decent and in the middle of pulling her arms through one of Dani’s denim jackets. She says, “You about done loafing around here? Clean up and put your shoes on.” 

“What?” Dani, virtually naked, lifts her head from the pillow to regard her with bleary confusion. “Why?”

“You said you were up for something fun, right? This is part of it.” Jamie drapes an olive green scarf around her shoulders. Another advancing step puts her close enough to lightly slap Dani’s thigh. “Up. Get a move on.”

“Okay, I’m going.” The annoyance in Dani’s voice is only surpassed by her bemusement. She sits upright and begins gathering her scattered clothes. “Although it would be nice if you told me _where_ we’re going.”

 _Where_ , as it happens, never necessitates leaving the car. The night is dark, close, and hushed. Snow blankets the neighborhoods Jamie cruises through, headlights penetrating a delicate flurry. Dani occupies the passenger seat, bundled up in her coat and wool socks with a pair of gloves protruding from her pocket in anticipation of any mischief Jamie could plan.

They never come out this way. After fifteen minutes of driving, she wonders if Jamie even knows where she’s going. The phosphor green clock on the dashboard reads a quarter to nine, and Dani is too weary from the day to ask. 

Christmas is fast-approaching. Festive lights strung on houses profess warm cheer in the dead of winter. It’s a timeless sight. When Dani looks upon their hazy glow, her temporal immediacy melts and sends her skidding adrift through all the decades of her life. She’s a child, a teenager, an adult. Her sense of wonder, albeit of variable intensity, still assumes the same shape in her chest. 

Jamie rounds a corner. This block is the most luminous Dani has witnessed, perhaps to date. Every house and every plant is dressed in lights of all colors and twinkling pattern. Dani is amazed she didn’t observe the glow polluting the night sky from a mile away. She might have, if she weren’t so sleepy. 

“They’re having a contest,” Jamie says, pulling into an occupied space along the sidewalk. She parks the car and switches off the headlights, allowing the exposition’s full glory to envelop them. “Saw a sign the other day.”

It’s a lovely sight, but Dani is compelled to point out, “You know, you’re supposed to take me places _then_ do things to me.”

“And when, exactly, have we ever done things in order? Hm, Poppins?”

Dani is rendered momentarily speechless by a pang of nostalgia. She can’t help but smile and say, “You haven’t called me that in... _years_.”

Jamie pauses to verify that though her own recollection. She determines, “I haven’t, have I? Guess there’s not many kids around these days to reinforce it.”

As soon as Jamie offers her hand over the center console, Dani takes it and laces their cold fingers together. For a time they sit quietly and spectate the glittering, peaceful scene. Dani thinks about the little tree they trimmed and ornamented together last week. It stands in the front room, near the window, shedding pine needles all over the floor. 

This year, like many previous ones, Dani bought Jamie clothes and interesting novels. She’s learned to look forward to jewelry, perfumes, and luxurious soaps in return. Nothing exchanged between them has ever gone unworn or unused. The time Jamie misjudged her taste with a midnight blue nail polish - dark colors had never been Dani’s preference - she sat down with her on the plush bath mat, where Dani filed, shaped, and applied the polish to Jamie’s more suitable nails. Any excuse to hold and pamper her hands is a gift of its own.

“I like this,” Jamie whispers. “I still feel a little warm in my bones. Know what I mean?”

She does, so recently after the fact. It’s contentment draping over her like velvet. It’s skirting around the blurry edge of a dream. She wants for nothing. 

Then why, again, is Dani stricken by a vague yearning? For months she’s carried and interpreted it as libido. At this instant they suffer none of its grip, yet the feeling remains. Have they not known each other deeply enough? Have they not loved each other completely? It’s as though she’s holding back something meant for them. Another conversation - this one as heavy as the world. 

Dani’s stare, flat and subjectless, is fixed on a barren deciduous tree in a nearby yard. As she surfaces from contemplation, the tree comes back into focus, as does a string of lights spiraling around its trunk and branches in endless golden bands. 

And Dani realizes what’s been missing.

Her heart beats faster while turning to face Jamie’s profile through the darkness. She gathers her voice. “Can I ask you something?”

“Course.” Jamie meets her eyes.

Dani hesitates long enough to invigorate Jamie’s curiosity. Before her attention can become concern, Dani asks, “If it were legal, is getting married something you’d want?”

The question gives Jamie pause. She blinks at the surprise. “In general? Or are you talking about... us?”

While Jamie is only being pedantic, it still hurts a little to hear her make a distinction. 

Dani says, “Either one.”

Jamie sits back in her seat and stares out at the lights beyond the windshield. “It’s a nice thought,” she supposes.

“So it means something to you?”

An uneasy smile precedes Jamie’s next response. “Listen, Dani. I know your relationship with marriage is... complicated. Troubled, really. I wouldn’t ask that of you. And I don’t want you worrying about me, because I’m already very happy. As long as I’m with you.” She glances down at where their hands lie together, then raises them to kiss the back of Dani’s.

Their solemnity inspires a long bout of silence. Jamie is correct about Dani never quite repairing her idea of marriage. In the compartment of her psyche ruled by survivalist reflex, marriage is a jail cell, the maw of a beast, the signing of her own death certificate. She regularly flinches at its very insinuation. 

Marriage is synonymous with Eddie and everything he came to represent toward the end of his life. Its purpose is eclipsed by fevered nightmares of conformity and ownership - arguably the ancient founding principles of that institution - and Dani struggles to see past the veil of pain. It’s an incredibly arduous feat, mentally framing her and Jamie within its paradigm when their relationship directly opposes Dani’s personal conception of it. 

Dani tries anyway because she knows, as evidenced by the ease and certainty of others walking in matrimony, that marriage is not inherently evil. And now that Jamie wants it, Dani is more incentivized than ever to alter her perception.

If they cannot fit its convention, they will reclaim and redefine it. They will bend it, dismantle it, reconstruct it until marriage outlines a flush embrace over their lives, inspired daily by the architects it shelters. 

That will take time. A temple raised in a day will not last beyond one, and the marital home Dani wants for her and Jamie - if any at all - must weather the erosion of time eternally. It must be a light that never goes out. 

Someday, when the world is finally ready for them, they’ll be ready, too.

**xvi. (investment)**

“They got poached. And we’re fucked.”

Still zipped into a pink-and-mint windbreaker worn out while running errands, Dani sits at the coffee table with her head in her hands. Further on, Jamie paces through pale February light flooding in through the windows, furiously thinking. 

Business has taken a turn for the worse. After years of loyalty, their largest supplier has announced a migration to another vendor once their contract expires next month. Rather than renew with The Leafling, the supplier shall sign with a well-established home and garden outlet in New York. 

Before their imminent descent into panic, Dani says, “We still have time, right? We have a month. Maybe we can match what they’ve been offered.”

“It’s an eight percent wholesale increase,” Jamie says. “We can’t afford that.”

“We can’t afford losing _them_.”

Expelling a sound of frustration, Jamie takes a seat in the armchair. “Either way we’ll be in the red. I did the maths. Accounting for overhead and labor, we’ll be down over a thousand every month until we can fill the empty shelves. Check it yourself. Left the books on the counter.”

Dani does so, not for doubt in Jamie’s recently honed mathematical proficiency, but to survey the damage herself and search for means of escape. They review the numbers together. The outlook is grim. Jamie is willing to work herself ragged in pursuit of a replacement supplier, but securing deals can span weeks, months. In the meantime, they will either have to absorb the losses or cut back elsewhere. Jamie can hardly supplant the deficit in product with her own. Living things take time to grow. They don’t even have the space to do it en masse.

They might have, had this tragedy struck at a later time. Recently, Jamie has been flirting with the idea of purchasing a plot of land for a nursery. Now that she’s finished with school and can depend upon Dani and their employees to mind the store, her schedule has opened up to possibilities of future expansion and increased self-reliance. If that ambition hasn’t been outright suffocated by the irony of the situation, it’s been indefinitely relegated to the back burner.

Labor is the first item on the chopping block. Someone has to go, Jamie stresses. One at the very _least_. Dani is dismayed. She’s never had to fire anyone before, let alone for something no fault of their own. Despite Jamie volunteering to address that grisly business, Dani’s grown fond of their three employees and can’t bear the injustice of passing their financial turmoil onto them. 

“It’s just the reality,” comes Jamie’s mirthless reasoning. “Throw one overboard or the whole ship goes under.”

Dani says, “Is that the only thing we can do? We have savings, right? Maybe we can hang in there for a while.”

Jamie taps the pink eraser tip of a pencil against the scribbled-up legal pad before her, a little too firmly. “Well, if you squint, we’ve got a few options. Like you’re suggesting, we could take the hit for some months. Also, public transportation’s decent round these parts. We could sell the car. It’s getting old, though. Probably wouldn’t get much for it. I still think sacking one or two is the way to go about this.”

“Okay.” Dani draws a deep breath and folds her hands together on the cool surface of the kitchen island. “In that case, let’s take some time to think about it fairly before we decide... who it should be. We owe them that.”

After releasing her pencil with a blocky clatter, Jamie agrees with a nod. “Guess we’re adjourning for now,” she dryly says. “Meet back here tomorrow morning. Any and all suggestions welcome.”

What Dani experiences is akin to parental anguish. The Leafling is more than their livelihoods. It’s the precious dream conceived between her and Jamie to consolidate their permanent life together. They built The Leafling from nothing, poured their hearts and souls into it, watched it grow from infancy into a well-regarded member of the local community. 

They will not let their business fail. Jamie will secure another supplier. Their regular clientele will not abandon them. It’s the stretch between now and the moving target of a rebound that causes Dani anxiety. She already feels it, and their revenue hasn’t even tanked yet.

Dani reassesses their limited courses of action. Last time they were caught in dire straits, she had equity to cash out. These days, their assets are well-integrated features of their lifestyle. They habitually keep no excess, no acquisitions beyond what is needed. Nothing can be sacrificed without monumentally inconveniencing themselves.

The next morning, they reassemble at the island and make the painful decision to let go of Stephen, their first hire. He’s not as reliable as the other two, and he sells much less. Jamie tries to rationalize away their guilt by stating, “He’ll be fine. He said he’s off to trade school next year. Says he’s going to be an electrician. He’ll do well enough without us.” 

They plan to inform Stephen next week. They’ll need to start hoarding the difference in wages as soon as possible to make the most of it. 

Jamie goes to work. Today is Dani’s day off. She spends it doing chores to keep preoccupied. She dusts furniture. Sweeps and mops. Brings order to their kitchen utensil drawer, which never fails to grow increasingly disorganized over time at the mercy of lazy hands. She skips breakfast but eats lunch an hour early, assembling a pathetic-looking turkey sandwich and a cup of coffee saturated with cream and sugar. Eating reminds her to add several items to the grocery list magnetically pinned to the side of the refrigerator. 

In growing desperation for something productive to do, Dani turns to the bedroom closet. She’s been meaning to thin her wardrobe for a while now. It benefits no one to preserve articles that simply aren’t in fashion anymore, and she honestly doubts there will ever be a revival of the flamboyance that characterized the previous decade. 

Dani pulls her juniper green sweater over her head, mussing her hair in the process. She stands in her bra before the wall of garbs on assorted hangers of plastic and metal and wood, knowing that even if she works through from her side of the closet, she will inevitably encounter Jamie’s possessions carelessly mixed in. Before committing to any removals, she’ll have to run them by her. Just in case.

Tedium mounts faster than expected. Dani keeps many and culls few, too attached for her own good. Once she’s thoroughly bored, Dani starts trying on Jamie’s clothes. She stands before a body-length mirror, hooking on a pair of black overalls over a band t-shirt that smells of old cotton from neglect. She wears Jamie’s moodier items: long collars and corduroy and short velvets sweeping into floral patterns.

Out of nowhere, while sitting at the edge of their bed with a flannel shut over her chest by a single button, Dani suddenly feels strange. Off-center. A tad cold. It has nothing to do with borrowing Jamie’s clothes; feeling closer to her through secret frivolities isn’t a new phenomenon in the slightest. This is different. While she and Jamie comprise two within the sanctuary of her thoughts, this sensation suggests the clandestine presence of a third. It’s like a shadow affixed to the back of her head. Whenever Dani turns, it moves with her gaze, eluding it. 

She glances at the mirror again and sees herself, clad in brown tartan. 

Shoes are Dani’s next victim. The pairs at the forefront of her collection see the most usage, only surpassed by the ones she keeps on a little shelf beside the front door. Her attention is upon her least comfortable and least attractive, shamed at the back of the closet. 

Dani is indiscriminately extracting shoes for sorting when she rediscovers a wooden box stacked beneath a cardboard crate of documents. Despite forgetting its existence, she remembers what it is at first sight. Dani wipes a layer of dust away and unclamps the metal lock holding its lid in place. The gleaming contents give her an idea. 

That night, Dani is soaking in a warm bath when she hears the rap of knuckles on the door. Upon admission, Jamie approaches the sink to brush her teeth. She’s dressed for bed, but has forgotten to remove her earrings. Jamie notices in the mirror’s reflection and pauses to take them out. 

“I found something today,” Dani shares. “Remember the jewelry my mom gave me a while back?”

Jamie makes an affirmative sound. 

“I’m thinking about getting it appraised. Some of it might be worth something.”

The instant she catches on, Jamie warily slows her brushing. In respect for equal range of response, Jamie is permitted to finish before they continue the conversation.

After wiping her mouth with a hand towel, Jamie says, “You aren’t thinking of selling it, are you? You’ve got that _look_.”

“Why not? For the last five years it’s been sitting in the closet, doing nothing. Besides, I can’t really wear most of it anyway. It’s old and gaudy.”

“I thought it was an heirloom.”

“Yeah, _but_.” Water laps at Dani’s chest as she turns to fold her forearms on the porcelain rim of the bathtub, orienting herself in Jamie’s direction. Her hair, darkened nearly brunette by dampness, clings to her shoulders. “Something tells me I won’t be having any heirs. And since my mother only had one kid... there’s nowhere left for it to go. Why not put it to good use before it all goes to waste?”

“Dani.” Jamie sighs and leans back against the sink. “You’ve already sunk so much into the shop. An entire _house_ , remember? I can’t match that. I try to, but I can’t.”

She furrows her brow. “Well why do you think I want to do it? What I’m selling is worth what we have and what I want for us. You don’t need to match anything. You already did.”

Jamie withdraws for thought. In the end, she drums her fingertips on the lip of the counter and says, “All right. I guess we can talk about it again later, once we know how much it’s worth. I mean, it’s not like I’d stop you. I just want you to be sure. I don’t want you regretting it one day.”

Presently, the only regrets Dani can foresee are the consequences of _not_ selling it while it’s most useful to them.

When she has a chance, Dani spreads a white cloth over the coffee table and lays out each accessory by category. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, among others. In total, Dani is in possession of thirty-nine pieces and sets combined.

Frankly, she can’t tell the difference between diamonds and cubic zirconia, but she _does_ recognize the cool yellow hue of true gold and knows enough about gemstones to react positively to imperfection and slight fogginess. By her amateur judgement, Dani finds at least sixteen specimens that meet basic criteria for authenticity. 

There’s a pair of bezel-set opal earrings she’d like to keep for herself. As for everything else, she wouldn’t lament any specific departures. There are a few curiosities she’d like to first learn more about, however, such as a pearl bracelet chained to a ring, a cameo brooch, a silver scarf pin, and a pair of matching wedding bands tied together by a dingy, frayed bit of twine. 

The bands do not present stones, but imagery cut into the very gold that uniformly constitutes them. Dani examines one closely to perceive a pair of hands clutching a crowned heart. She’s never seen anything like it before. 

Dani calls a jeweler to schedule an appointment for appraisal. While they’re known for providing this service for free where quick and easy identifications are involved, fees incur with every piece beyond three. When she tells Jamie the estimate quoted to her, she winces, but can’t deny the potential for profit. Finding just one piece of value could pay for the appointment three times over. 

The intense white light humming through the jewelry store, setting a dazzling glitter in the contents of glass display cases, only makes Dani wearier the longer she roasts beneath its assault. She sits at a counter as an old white-haired man in a suit lifts another ring to an eyepiece, moving briskly through the collection. Dani considers how she’ll go about concealing or omitting this in future conversations with her mother. Maybe she’ll say it was all stolen. She returns her attention to the man whenever he spares succinct comments upon determining and recording genuineness. 

He advises her to bring several to an antique specialist, while others should be insured as soon as possible.

When they reach the peculiar wedding bands, Dani asks the appraiser if he recognizes what they are. She learns their name and promptly butchers the pronunciation upon repeating aloud: _Claddagh_. Apparently, it’s an Irish symbol of love, loyalty, and friendship. Dani has never known much about her ancestry. Her mother couldn’t be bothered to preserve let alone impart any history of that nature. But given bands’ heirloom status, Dani figures some degree of relevant heritage is a safe assumption. 

She wonders who they originally belonged to. Due to the variable meaning the rings convey based on how they’re worn, there’s no way to know with certainty whether they once lived upon the hands of spouses, friends, or family. 

Experimentally, Dani slips one onto her ring finger. It’s a perfect fit. The other is too large, likely sized for a man. But she likes the way it looks. The symbol professes a honeyed, opulent richness without employing glittering stones to advertise the fortuitous, commercially-sanctioned wealth of a union. This is a sculpture, a thoughtful rendition of love and fluid sentiment etched by careful, exacting hands. She’s almost reluctant to remove it.

Before leaving the jeweler, Dani asks, out of curiosity, how much it would cost to have a ring resized. 

Over time Dani’s collection wanes, siphoned off to auctions, pawns, and private buyers responding to ads. Stephen keeps his job until he’s ready to leave them on his own terms. In May, Jamie signs with a replacement supplier at rates comparable to their previous ones. While Dani’s opal earrings relocate to her chest of everyday wear, the Claddagh rings remain housed alone in the wooden box at the back of their closet, hidden, but not forgotten.

In the summer they drive half an hour south of the city, to several acres chain-linked off from the main road. Jamie unlocks the gate and leads them over a patchy field of dirt and grass baking in the day’s last heat. Toward the back, where a line of trees rebel to wildness against neatly-plotted rows, the grass grows taller, fuller, tickling Dani’s calves as she laughs and chases Jamie through a daze of warm yellow sunlight and flittering insects stirred into the air by their disruption. When they tire, they lie abreast on the ground. Dani twines stalks of grass together. Beside her, Jamie uncaps a water bottle and wets the earth. She sinks her fingers into yielding soil and upturns it, dark and loamy and fertile.

While heading back to the car, Jamie says to her, “I keep wondering when you’ll stop giving me things, when I already thought I had everything,” and Dani replies, smiling with midday brightness even as dusk rides their heels, “Never.” 

Sometimes, on early mornings, when Dani is awoken by dawn while Jamie sleeps within the curl of her arm, Dani raises her head to gaze longingly at beams of sunrise painting their closet. She’ll sleep an hour more. They’ll rise together and go about their day as they’ve done for the last eight years, loving each other through meals and obstacles and leisure. 

And Dani will steal moments out of precious hours to shut her eyes, breathe, and picture their hands folded together and banded in gold until the mental image no longer resurrects feelings of deception and entrapment, but instead exalts new tenets of truth and freedom.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays, everyone. This chapter was such a pleasure to write and I hope you enjoy reading it. I am also pleased to announce the addition of a new story tag, one that I’ve been excited to add for weeks.

**xvii. (tree of life)**

This year was meant to be perfect. With a nursery ripe for raising the loveliest blossoms the town has ever seen, a bank account full of spoils from liquidated heirlooms, and Jamie’s naturalization process finalizing in a matter of weeks, Dani hadn’t seen anything on the horizon but endless optimism. 

It was supposed to be the ideal environment for vanquishing her last reservations about proposing. 

When Dani sees it, it’s only for a second; a time short enough to reasonably doubt her senses, but long enough to pose a devastating concern if her senses have _not_ failed her. 

She’s haunted by her vision of that melting wax face and miry black hair hovering in The Leafling’s glass door, assuming the place of her own reflection. How it peered back at her, eyeless and calm, as if to gently chide her for having the hubris to forget. And Dani had, to an extent, indeed forgotten her - chiefly, the fear of her. 

Fear has returned in force, a shadow of apocalyptic weight looming overhead. 

Reticence infects her for days. On a night where she and Jamie are curled up in bed, watching a movie in the dark, Dani finds herself staring down at their hands resting together on the duvet and privately grieves their bareness. 

She wasn’t ready yet. The world wasn’t ready yet. But the Lady waits for neither. 

Hours later, a nightmare seizes her. Dani is floating, weightless. Light filters in from miles above, lost to murkiness at tremendous depth. Something fleshy drifts along; tattered, discolored, bloated. More follow, sailing by like gruesome balloons in a breeze. There are arms, legs, and heads with silky hair flowing in tranquil undercurrents. Half-lidded eyes, jaundiced and sightless, linger before her face. Putrid decay fills her mouth and lungs. It’s everywhere, and she’s part of it. 

Dani violently awakes in a cold sweat. She sends a hand fumbling through the dark, searching for something real to hold onto. It finds Jamie, who startles at the disturbance and switches on a lamp to apprehend Dani’s distress. 

Jamie says her name and applies a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. She slides an arm behind Dani’s trembling shoulders and sits her upright, helping Dani regain her breath and sense of place. When it’s over, Jamie tucks a lock of damp hair behind her ear and says, “What happened? What’s wrong? Jesus. It’s like you’ve gone for a swim.”

No answer could ever satisfy the extent of what is wrong. Dani’s feeble reply limps out, “B-bad dream.”

In the morning, Dani stands before a pan of whisked eggs, watching them congeal over heat. In an adjacent skillet sits two cooked halves of a sausage and a few slices of lightly-grilled tomato. After an idle draw from a cigarette, she raises a glass of orange juice for a sip of citric sweetness and the astringent bite of vodka intermingled. 

Jamie wanders into the kitchen, mumbling a sleepy, “Morning.” She opens a cabinet to withdraw two mugs and a box of black tea, fills the kettle with water, and sets it on an unoccupied burner. While momentarily encroaching upon Dani’s cooking space, Jamie asks, “How’re you feeling today?”

“Fine,” she answers, avoiding her eyes. Dani taps the cigarette over a ceramic tray beside the stovetop. 

Evidently parched, Jamie reaches for the covertly-spiked glass of orange juice left on the counter. Before Dani can stop her, she’s stolen a taste of her own. 

Disquiet evolves and sets in Jamie’s expression at the unexpected but highly recognizable flavor profile. She gazes down into the glass for a few seconds before slowly returning it to its former position. Dani turns over the eggs and pretends nothing is amiss. 

Far be it from Jamie to moderate or shame Dani’s consumption, but given the unique circumstances - two fresh cigarette butts already interred in the ashtray, the strength of a full shot or more of vodka swimming in her orange juice at eight in the morning, following a rather distressing night terror - neglecting to comment might’ve made Jamie derelict in her commitment to Dani’s welfare. When Jamie does ask, Dani understands why and appreciates her for it. But she has very little information to spare.

Jamie lays a tentative hand on Dani’s back. “Are you okay? I promise, you can tell me anything. Really. I mean it.”

“I know. It’s just... I’m sorry for waking you up last night.”

“It’s okay,” Jamie says. “I don’t mind.” 

Dani shuts off the flame beneath her scrambled eggs. A lump forms in her throat. “Are you sure? Because, with things like this— Sometimes, it can last a while, or... get worse.” 

“Dani, look at me.” Only when she receives eye contact does Jamie quietly insist, “I don’t mind. Okay?” 

She steps away to fetch a set of plates and cutlery. 

They sit in their pajamas at the island to eat breakfast. Dani stirs a spoon of sugar and a generous splash of milk into the mug of tea Jamie hands her. They share the remainder of the orange juice cocktail between them. It is a communion of understanding. Jamie acknowledges her sorrow, partakes in it, draws attention to Dani’s reckless coping without criticizing her for it. When they’re nearly finished, Jamie speaks of the nursery. 

“We’re ready for spring,” she reports. “Land’s cleared, soil’s tilled, irrigation’s installed. Can’t wait to get my hands dirty like I used to. My main concern is, it’s been a while since I worked anything larger than a storeroom. Might end up passing out on the first day. So, I’ll be bringing Stephen along to help. Who knows - he might just find something he’s good at.”

Dani cuts into a tomato slice with the side of her fork. She combines it with a few bits of egg impaled on the prongs. “You already asked him? He said yes?” 

“He did.”

After she finishes chewing, Dani says, “I’m surprised. Last week he said you yelled at him.”

“I didn’t yell at him. I firmly corrected his misconceptions about properly rotating perishable stock. He’s getting lazy. Some good old-fashioned hard labor could sort him out. It sorts _me_ out.” Jamie wipes her mouth with a napkin and discards it on her empty plate. “On second thought,” she adds with a raise of her brow, “maybe I should enlist someone else. If I pass out he’ll probably think I’m dead and bury me straight away.”

“You’re not actually planning to run an entire nursery by yourself, right? Aside from Stephen?”

Jamie shrugs. “Don’t see why I couldn’t. Most of it’s automated. I’ve got schedules, sprinklers on timers. The hardest part’s getting roots in and out of the ground. I’ll really have to stagger that. But it can be done. If I could manage Bly, this’ll be cake.”

“Yeah, ten years ago,” Dani reminds her. 

“ _Nine_ ,” Jamie argues, then narrows her eyes. “Are you saying I’m too old now?”

For the first time that morning, Dani smiles. “You used to work almost twelve hours a day, five or six days a week. Just yesterday you were saying eight to five is too long for you.”

“It’s true. Not that I’m tired. I just get bloody bored.”

With spring will come Jamie’s thirty-seventh birthday. She’s kept in good shape and health, but Dani’s cautioning is legitimate behind a facade of humor. To pretend that a decade - _nine_ years - hasn’t affected her physical endurance would be foolish. Jamie may find her capabilities outpaced by the needs of her nursery. Still, Dani doesn’t want that to discourage her. There’s no shame in asking for help. But Jamie so rarely seeks or accepts help from anyone, except for Dani.

Dani wonders how Jamie will fare when she’s gone. Will she retire pride to accept the succor of others, or will Jamie recede into solitude, bearing the full weight of her years alone until she’s gray and weary and the past joys of her life are an echo attenuating with existence, and the world forgets she and Dani ever lived? 

She can’t stop thinking about death. Dani’s heart preemptively wrenches at the hardships of the future, for they are numerous and inevitable. While washing the dishes, she sees limbs and eyes bobbing around the soap foam.

Jamie suggests they take a drive to the nursery later. She wants to show Dani the progress she’s made. They could make a day of it, she offers. They could take a lunch and enjoy the fresh air. 

Dani submerges the glass previously containing her orange juice cocktail and agrees.

It’s a pleasant distraction. The grasses are tamed and the old trees have been cut down, leaving twelve equally-spaced stumps behind. Rows of tilled soil yearn for seedlings, and a green tarp stretched on a metal frame marks space for a greenhouse. Jamie has been seeing to the gradual restoration of a shed near the front of the property. Once her first priority of weatherproofing was completed, Jamie began keeping supplies and equipment within, including the central control box for the sprinklers. Jamie explains how the switches correspond to different regions of the nursery and demonstrates setting the timers.

They take a walk through a temperate harmony of warm sun and cool wind, visiting the saplings Jamie has already planted. Leaves shimmer in a breeze, whispering amongst themselves in an ancient language. Birds soar overhead, surveying the processed land and touching down on occasion to reacquaint themselves with a habitat previously abandoned.  
  
The promise of life supplies a welcome counterweight for Dani’s dread. Her nerves level out. She secures her hair to keep it away from her face and casually extends a hand, level with their hips. Jamie takes hold of it without a word or second thought, adjusting the strap of the insulated lunch container slung over one shoulder. 

With multiple acres behind them, Jamie says, “I want to show you something else,” and leads them off course. 

Minutes away is a dirt mound, bordered by irregular found stones. A tree sprouts from its pinnacle, bush-like in vulnerable youth and reminiscent of pine or rosemary, save for its flat leaves masquerading as needles at a distance. Jamie sets down their lunch container in the short grass, slips her fingers into her pockets, and informs Dani, “It’s a yew.”

“Me?”

Jamie iterates with a smile and roll of her eyes, “A _yew_. That’s what the tree’s called. I planted it a few weeks ago. See, it’s poisonous. Every part of it. So, people tend to associate it with death. If you think about it, it’s pretty arrogant, assigning a morbid reputation to something just because it doesn’t want to be eaten. As if nature exists solely in servitude to people. Sometimes I like to believe I’m God in my garden, too. But in the end, it’s always me who’s the servant.”

When Jamie kneels before the tree, collecting dust on denim, Dani asks, “Why is it all the way out here?”

“It’s separate,” she begins to answer in her typical long-form fashion, “because it’s not for sale. Yews can live hundreds of years; I’ll be taking care of this one for the rest of my life, probably. Unless some prat decides to cut it down, it’ll still be here long after both of us are gone, sprouting new growth in this space. No, it’s not a moonflower. It might be the exact opposite. Or, maybe it’s the other half of the same equation. I guess I was inspired by the idea of caring for something when you’ll never see how it all goes or ends. I think about all the ways I can love it now, how that’ll influence its life for the best. Even if I won’t be around to see it, I’ll know I made a difference. I want to understand that feeling. I want to walk beside it, however I can.”

Before Jamie rises, Dani rests a hand on her shoulder. She’s so brittle with simultaneous grief and want and solace it coalesces into a certainty she’s pursued for months. Until now she’s held back as though awaiting some spectacular alignment of planets to signal her readiness. But it’s right here. Within Jamie, within herself. It has always been here, waiting for Dani to realize her inherent readiness for wanting in the first place.

They rinse their hands in a stream of cool bottled water and have lunch in the young yew’s company, legs folded beneath them on the dirt. Jamie distributes their club sandwiches, ginger ale, and strawberries. Sun and wind wash over them. Dani pictures the yew a hundred years from now, rustling green, untamed, and voluminous as it towers over the nursery like a monument to enduring causality. 

If no one else will, the yew will remember their love on this exact day, in the deepest rings of its heartwood. 

**xviii. (the vows)**

The click of her short heels sounds across wooden floors as Dani drifts over to the wilted calathea perched on the sunniest corner of the kitchen island. Gentle hands cradle its leaves in examination. The poor thing’s still under the weather, but she doesn’t doubt its survival for an instant. Jamie’s been diligently nursing it back to health through the full range of her expertise. Soon enough, the calathea will join their other houseplants as a permanent, beloved addition. 

She’s running out of distractions to preoccupy her. Excitement and anticipation squirm in her chest, following patterns dangerously similar to anxiety. Dani fondles the gold ring upon her left hand, the eternal adornment that makes her feel lighter than air and more radiant than the sun. She’s so buoyant with joy she’s liable to float away.

Dani returns to the recessed window in the front room. The green curtains are drawn open, granting a broad view of a street running parallel to a small park receiving the vigorous arrival of spring. There, trees regrow their leaves with unmatched zeal and flower buds tremble with eagerness to bloom. Closer, a blissful white bouquet stands on their console table, lush with lily of the valley, roses, and gardenias. Nature bears this day in splendor. 

“Jamie—!” Dani calls over her shoulder, toward the short hallway leading to their bedroom. “Jamie, are you ready?” Teasing, she adds, “James?”

Jamie replies at a distance, “I swear to God, Dani, if you keep calling me that I _will_ divorce you.”

Her mischievous smile remains intact. “You have to marry me before you can divorce me. So get over here.”

Eventually, Jamie appears at the entrance of the hallway. When Dani faces her, her smile softens. Dark rose print and sheer black sleeves hold Jamie’s silhouette in utmost esteem. Gold jewelry accents match the new glint on her hand. “Oh, Jamie,” Dani says in perfect adoration. “You look _beautiful._ ”

A modest, humored scoff departs Jamie. “Have a look at yourself. I’m always being shown up around here.” 

When Jamie joins her at the window, she lifts her hands to adjust the collar of Dani’s pleated white satin blouse and the dainty gilt necklace caught beneath. Dani has paired her opal earrings with her ensemble. 

Jamie’s hands slide down and fold into Dani’s. Their wedding rings, gleaming together under near-noon sunlight, draw their admiration. Dani strokes her knuckles, crosses their hands to take Jamie’s left in hers where their bands glance with an inaudible tap of metal on metal. Dani’s heart beams with contentment. Nearly a minute passes before Jamie reminds them of their purpose for assembling in formal dress with no intention to leave home for hours.

“Our stuff first, right?” 

Dani returns from daydreaming to reply, “Right.”

Jamie nods. “Ready, then?”

Silent, mutual reassurance suspends between them. Dani labors to commit to memory the image of bright light framing the contours of Jamie’s face and playing in the comforting cool tones of her eyes. _Jamie_ ; wonderful, beautiful Jamie. Her bride. Her greatest love, extending her soul to hers to weave together and never come undone. She wants to embrace this moment forever.

Dani _is_ ready. She is euphorically ready. 

“I suppose I’ll go first,” says Jamie. She sheepishly retrieves a paper tucked in the pocket of her skirt and prefaces, “I meant to memorize it, but... I have it here anyway. Wanted to make sure I got it right. So, here goes.” She unfolds the page, smooths out the creases, and proceeds solemn with meaning and uneasy nerves, “Dani, the first things I ever loved about you were your kindness and bravery. You move me. You inspire me. You are my first and last thought of every day. Your smile is my favorite sight and your laugh is my favorite sound. Your love is a bouquet of hope, an endless summertime of generosity, passion, and true companionship. Our marriage will be the most important garden I’ll ever tend. Though spring, rain, harsh winter... I will tend to you, love you, with eternal faith. To us, I give myself completely.”

At the conclusion of her promise, Jamie wipes tears forming in her eyes with the back of her wrist. Dani, on the verge of crying herself, collects Jamie’s face in her hands and brings them close. 

“Said I wouldn’t cry,” Jamie remarks. “I say that a lot. But I always do.”

They stay there, foreheads touching, to recompose.

It’s Dani’s turn. She hasn’t anything concrete prepared. Days ago, she decided she would speak from her heart at the mercy of the given moment. Her vow would be a raw glimpse into the soul, unpolished and unfettered. Her approach sharply contrasts Jamie’s thoroughly premeditated distillation to poetry, but no modicum of doubt has ever challenged their equivalency. 

Dani draws back, still holding onto Jamie’s forearms.

“A long time ago,” she starts, “I thought life was just about... enduring and managing pain. Then I met you, and I realized it could be _so_ _much_ more than that.” Dani sighs a weak laugh. “You should know, Jamie. You gave me a life I didn’t even think was possible, and it’s the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. I know I can always count on you, trust you, hold onto you when I need you. You mean the world to me. You’re my home. You’ve made me _so_ happy, for _so_ long. And someday, when I’m gone—” Her voice breaks under emotion as she lifts Jamie’s hand, indicating her ring. “You’ll be able to look at this and know that I’m still with you here and that I’ll _always_ love you.”

At the grim turn, Jamie says, “Dani...”

Dani offers a smile and nods, understanding Jamie’s plead to not entertain thoughts of death on an otherwise joyful day. She snivels before allowing them to proceed by retrieving a reference of her own from the window sill: a folded paper copy of a text she researched at the library. It’s subtly modified to suit the needs of their private home ceremony, where there are no witnesses but themselves, for they have no need of any to practice truth between them. She offers the paper to Jamie and requests, “Ask me first?”

Jamie accepts it. She draws a steadying breath, concentrates, and recites, “Do you, Dani Clayton, take me to be your wife—” The gravity of her words suddenly drains her voice of strength, but leaves certainty unperturbed. “—to have and hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish, always?”

She lifts her gaze to anticipate Dani’s answer, as if it could be anything other than a tearful, “Yes. I do.”

Dani reads the same question back to Jamie, conveying every word like a treasure, until Jamie reciprocates, “I do. You know I do.”

They nearly forget, momentarily, what tradition typically follows. Jamie seeks to clarify, “So, this is the part where we—?”

“Oh! Yes.” Dani softly laughs. “Okay. Ready?”

Two pairs of hands arrange themselves on each other’s faces, maintaining a kind and careful presence as they lean in to share their first kiss in wake of their vows. Dani believes she’s kissed Jamie more times than there are stars in the firmament, but this one still elicits a delicate tremble of newness. 

Jamie sinks a butter knife into a frosted red velvet cupcake and passes one half to Dani. It’s their improvised wedding cake, bought that morning from a local confections bakery. One lone cupcake seems a paltry purchase compared to boxed dozens flying from their shelves at all hours of operation, but it may have been their most significant sale of the day where sentimental value is concerned. While enjoying the dessert, they debate the true date of their anniversary. 

Through a partial mouthful, Jamie reasons, “I thought it’d be when we started wearing the rings.”

“No, it’s today,” Dani insists. “People’s anniversaries observe their wedding day, not when they got engaged.”

“You said we’d wear the rings and know, all self-evident like. We didn’t need a ceremony to be married.”

“We didn’t need an _officiated_ ceremony to be married.” Dani notices frosting smeared across the tip of her thumb. She slips it between her lips.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” says Jamie, peeling away the cupcake liner to expose her final bite, “because I’ve already marked my calendar. In _ink_ , if I might add.”

“Well, now you just have a calendar that’s wrong.”

At a later time, Jamie will cross out her prior assumption and pen in her annotation three days forward. 

Dani has a request. She almost doesn’t pose it, not wanting to make Jamie uncomfortable on a day just as special to her. So, she compromises. She will ask, and if Jamie declines, she will not press the issue or express disappointment. Incidentally, her caution is needless: within seconds of suggesting a first dance, Jamie is smiling and glancing away, suddenly shy to answer, “Of course.”

As before, Dani keeps them slow and intimate. There’s more swaying than steps as they tread a clear space in the front room, neither leading nor following according to convention. 

“What changed your mind?” Jamie asks at the fading of the second instrumental song, her voice hushed and warm beside Dani’s head. “About marriage?”

Dani hums in thought. Her answer is a simple, anticlimactic, “You.”

“No specific reason?”

This time, Dani searches deeper. She sifts past fear. While certainly a motivator, it is not the soul of her decision. It was only pressure to mend her wounds faster. The true source of her desire was to construct a symbol around their lives that might encapsulate the tenderness within.

“I guess,” Dani begins, “I realized marriage could mean whatever we wanted it to. It’s not just one thing. We’d still be the same people. We’d still love each other the same. And there was nothing to be afraid of, because... I’d be with you the whole time.”

After contemplating Dani’s response, Jamie shares, “Never thought I’d get married. Didn’t think it was in the cards.”

“Has it made you happier? So far, at least?” 

Jamie affords some time for introspection. “You know I was already happy, right? _Very_ happy? But, yeah. I am happier. I feel... calm. Content. All over.”

Dani kisses her cheek and admits in humor, “I’m running out of ideas for things to give you.”

“Oh, I reckon there’s still plenty.” Jamie returns the kiss with a smile and an overly sweet recommendation, “You can give me many, many more days of being married to you.”

She holds Jamie in a close embrace, hoping with all her heart for the privilege to do so. 

The afternoon and evening smear into a haze of celebration. They open a bottle of champagne and take photographs; posed, candid, deliberately sabotaged. They discuss who of their respective families should be informed, if any. After drinking so liberally, they have to take a cab to a restaurant for dinner. It’s steaks and more wine. They rest their ankles together beneath the table and keep their hands above its surface in plain view. No one seems to notice. And if they do, they don’t mind. 

At home, a harmless quip about consummation becomes playful banter, and that banter unfurls into hours-long pleasantry reaching irresponsibly far into a Sunday night.

During a quiet interlude between bedsheets, when Jamie is flush against her back and their fingers are laced together over the calming rise and fall of Dani’s chest, Jamie asks, “Do you want a honeymoon?”

Filled to the brim by the dreamy warmth of lovemaking, virtually any proposition sounds feasible and appealing to Dani. 

“We can afford a lot of places right now,” Jamie follows up her suggestion. “Plus, we’ve got enough hands to take care of the shop. Amy’s a star. I’m thinking of making her assistant manager soon - with your blessing, obviously. We’d need to leave someone in charge if we’re both out.”

A thought occurs to Dani. “I wonder what they’d think,” she says, her words a little drawn-out by relaxation, “if we just went on vacation for days, or a week, _together_. Davie already asked about my ring on Friday. I said it was a secret. But it’s only a matter of time before he sees yours, too. They all will.”

Jamie softly kisses the back of her neck, making Dani clutch at her fingers in surprise. “Are you worried about it?”

“Aren’t you? You usually are.”

She hears Jamie inhale. “I’d say _concerned_ is a more apt description. It’s always inconvenient when your workforce deserts you in a moral panic. But, honestly? I think they already know. I really wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Well, maybe not Stephen. Poor sod.”

Dani says, “I hope so. It would definitely make everything a _lot_ easier.” 

They ponder all the places they might escape to. Famous beaches, cities, wonders of nature. They linger on the idea of Paris when Jamie mentions Owen’s restaurant - the one he sent photos of in last year’s Christmas card. Visiting him to share the news in person could prove a wonderful digression. They could go immediately. Or, they could go in a month or two, once the weather improves on the way to summer. Dani knows there’s a good argument for haste, but she can’t quite wrap her mind around it as Jamie starts touching her again. 

“All those evenings,” Dani imagines aloud, sighing at the lavish kisses Jamie paints over her neck, and the hand squeezing her breast, “drinking real champagne on hotel balconies, and... seeing the city lit up at night—” 

She’s quieted by the fingertips gliding down the length of her spine to slip between her legs. Dani, well cared for over the last hour, welcomes Jamie back with ease. After settling in, however, Jamie stills as though patiently awaiting something. Realization has Dani smiling and biting her lip. Jamie is only being polite in providing an opportunity for Dani to continue after so rudely interrupting. 

“And, you know, the clothes and perfume—” Her smile falters as Jamie commits to an angle that drives her wild in the appropriate mood. “—in the... shopping districts... We’ll see all the landmarks, a-and parks, and... gardens.” A hitching breath and fragile sound escape her as she starts to, without thinking, rock her hips back to ride Jamie’s slow, measured thrusts. It takes Dani several seconds to regain her voice, lips silently parted at the pleasure curling through her limbs. Breathlessly, she adds, “Jamie... I love taking you to museums... We... We have to go see the one with... the one where... _Oh_ —”

Too distracted to contribute any further input, Dani gladly complies with being turned onto her front. The pillow beneath her cheek catches each shaky breath and whimper Jamie impels with increased leverage and urgency. When Jamie pins a hand beneath her hips to supplement the work of the other, Dani takes full advantage of its presence.

Jamie’s lips roam her shoulders, leaving prolific kisses behind on quivering skin. She resumes the conversation with a whispered, “Hm, I don’t know... Sounds a little too exciting for me. You know how I like things boring. Maybe we should stay home.”

By the tone of her voice, Dani can tell she’s joking. She partakes in her game by whining, “ _No_ , we should _go_...”

“You think so? Because I think having a week to ourselves could be just as nice.”

“ _Jamie—_ ” 

Even Dani cannot decide whether she frames her name as an objection or a prelude to her imminent finish. 

“Forget the travel, champagne, museums. You know what I’d like?” As she holds her at the precipice, Jamie leans in close and speaks against the back of Dani’s neck, “All the time in the world to bed my wife _properly._ ”

Dani suspects it’s the word that gets her there - _wife_. There’s a charge to it, a potency, a fulfillment of its own that informs and obliges hers to follow suit. And Jamie says it _so_ well, like a brief stanza or a vital stroke in a beautiful painting. She flutters and unravels around it, covets it. 

“Let me know what you want to aim for,” Jamie says upon withdrawal. “Now or later. My vote is for summer.”

Between the deep breaths of her recovery, Dani sighs, “Okay,” in agreement. “I think you’re right. We should really leave someone in charge if we’re gone that long.”

She rolls over, captures Jamie’s shoulders in her arm, and pulls her down. One extended kiss becomes many of gradually diminishing length and depth.

When they finally part, Jamie says, “I’ll offer the position tomorrow,” locates Dani’s left hand, hooks a pinky finger around hers, and presses her lips to her wedding band.


	10. Chapter 10

**xix. (the poet’s heart)**

The Leafling is the first to know. Or, rather, its employees. In due time Dani and Jamie will consider themselves delusional for believing they could conceal their marriage at least until June, the targeted window for their Paris trip. Still, they try. 

Both condemn the idea of removing their rings during the workday. While the notion stoops like a vulgarity in Dani’s conscience, Jamie openly expresses her commitment to never do so even under threat of exposure or censure. They only draw the line at physical harm, when Jamie states with enough profound austerity to break Dani’s heart, “Sometimes, people obsess over a symbol so much they lose sight of what it means. This is a ring. You are my wife. I would _never_ forsake your safety in worship of a bit of metal.”

They manage the shop on alternating days, adhering to strict shift assignments. Jamie works with Amy and Stephen, exclusively, while Dani takes Davie and Erin. Flimsy logic dictates that in this arrangement, each employee will only have knowledge of one ring and never its mate. However, obvious absence only draws attention. To what, the employees begin to suspect within mere days of pondering the strange new shift scheduling. 

Explicit confirmation comes around the beginning of April, approximately two weeks after Dani and Jamie’s home wedding. 

Stephen calls in sick on a day where Jamie is preoccupied with training Amy in managerial duties. With no one available to fill the void, Dani minds the front while the other two retreat into the storeroom. Dani keeps her distance. The workday concludes and Amy goes home.

After closing, Jamie lingers in the storeroom to finish sorting the morning’s shipment. Dani assists. When they’re nearly finished, Dani ruminates over a stainless steel table wedged between shelves of sprouting seedlings nurtured under lamplight. 

“What’re you thinking?” Jamie casually inquires from across the room. With a small grunt, she stacks an empty pallet atop a growing tower. 

Dani smiles and looks over her shoulder. “Remember that day, when you first told me you loved me? We came back here, and... this is where I told you the same.”

Jamie returns her smile, charmed by the sweet recollection. “Been meaning to tell you. I’m growing another moonflower this year.”

“Are you?” Dani beams at the news. 

“Yep. Due around October. We’ll have ourselves another little show in the moonlight.”

With the stock squared away, Jamie dusts her palms on the material of her pants and switches off the main overhead lights. Only the growing lamps feebly illuminate the space. She approaches Dani, fits her hands on her waist, and leans in to seek a kiss. Enraptured by the romance Jamie always affords her, Dani provides several. When she tilts into their kiss to deepen it, then pursues more at its conclusion, Jamie readily obliges.

It’s horribly impulsive of them, but not unexpected. Despite being married for weeks, their hands haven’t stopped wandering, and their bed can’t seem to stay made for more than five hours at a time in their presence. Dani can’t say whether an overflow of marital excitement is to blame, or the hourglass running faster. Reality best accommodates a combination of both.

Spontaneity sees Dani pushing Jamie back until she must sit atop the table for lack of maneuverable room. Delighted by her predicament, Jamie folds her arms around Dani’s neck and hums contentment into her mouth. Dani fondly smooths her hands over Jamie’s thighs, settling her hips between them. While sliding forward, her wristwatch grazes the table’s edge with a metallic click. She hopes the sound doesn’t portend damage. Undeterred, Dani flattens her hands on Jamie’s lower back, holding them firm against one another as her lips find her neck. Every trailing caress is imbued with ardent meaning.

Behind Dani’s closed eyes, memories of moonflowers unfurl as flashes of ivory in the dark. She thinks of the poetry Jamie drapes over their lives through careful words and gestures, enriching their love. Trees and rare blossoms nurtured in Dani’s honor. Bouquets every day of every season. A bedroom drawer made a meadow by numerous gifted perfumes and floral essences that remind Jamie of her. 

Jamie is _so_ complicated, _so_ sensitive. Dani loves her when she speaks and when she doesn’t, and how deliberately she elects to do either. She loves her when she broods. When she scoffs, rolls her eyes, and shakes her head with a bearing of aloofness only to spend painstaking months cultivating living emblems of her boundless love. Jamie carries the heart of an artist without trying or wanting to be one. Life itself is her medium; the experience and perception and beauty of being. 

Dani could not have married better. Of this, she is certain.

She whispers adoration against Jamie’s throat, knowing how reliably the right words invite such deep and vivid blushing to her body. Her indulgent kisses descend past her collarbone, to where she pushes the buttons of Jamie’s black shirt through their loops, one by one. Dani reapplies her hands to her back. Their pressure encourages a shallow arch, presenting the exposed skin of Jamie’s chest to generous, undivided attention. She savors the strain of her breathing, basks in the heat of her blush as Jamie clutches at her sleeves. Dani is about to delve into the cup of her bra when she hears a sound. White light floods the room. 

They push apart as fast as physically possible; Dani exclaims in surprise while Jamie swiftly closes her shirt over her chest.

An intruder stands at the entrance of the storeroom, covering their eyes with both hands. Within a heartbeat, Dani identifies Amy by long rust-brown hair flowing over her shoulders, and a manager’s key ring dangling from one finger.

“I-I forgot my raincoat,” Amy stammers. “It stopped raining earlier, so... I forgot it.”

No one moves or speaks again for a few seconds. Dani glances to locate the coat hanging near a cabinet. On stiff legs, she ventures over, retrieves it, and delivers it to Amy with grave, worried apology etched in her features. Without a word, Amy receives the coat, nods, and gingerly shuts the door behind her. 

Jamie swears and slams her hand against the table in frustration. Another hissed profanity addresses her self-inflicted pain.

For hours, they don’t know what to do.

While lying in bed with the lights on, their communication finally graduates from terse phrases to multi-sentence complete thoughts as they discuss the incident in detail. They know they’ve been stupid, and they know their stupidity has tempted a host of potential consequences. 

If they’ve scandalized Amy badly enough, she may resign. If Amy resigns, they’ll lose their future assistant manager. If they lose their assistant manager, they can’t go to Paris without lying awake every night wondering if The Leafling is still standing. If Amy decides to share what she’s learned with her coworkers, any further resignations will leave them short-staffed and overwhelmed. If rumor spreads through the local community, they could suffer an appreciable dip in business. 

These are, of course, worst case scenarios. While they should stay mindful of the possibilities, their efforts are best concentrated on damage control. 

Jamie is too upset to be helpful. Her usual calculating demeanor has retired for the night, leaving grim reserve as a poor substitute. Dani isn’t so surprised. After all, Amy _is_ her apprentice. Jamie speaks highly of her, trusts her to carry the torch. And she does not trust easily. Perhaps Jamie has betrayed her, in a way, by failing to embody a worthy example of management. People of any disposition should not behave this way in professional settings. It’s unbecoming. It’s immature. Not to mention _highly_ inappropriate.

“We have to talk to her,” Dani says, watching Jamie remove a cigarette from her lips to stub it out in the glass tray on her nightstand. “We have to apologize. That’s more important than anything else right now.”

“Sounds good,” says Jamie, distant. She lies back to stare at the ceiling. “You know she’s never going to take me seriously again, right?”

Dani can’t help but snort a laugh. That vexes Jamie, who hadn’t exactly meant it as a joke. It _is_ funny, though, in an unfortunate, tragic way. Catching Jamie in such a state must be incredibly bewildering for Amy, who, like everyone else at The Leafling, is well adjusted to Jamie’s persona as rigorous and detached, whereas Dani is as gentle and unpresumptuous as the flowers she arranges. 

But those are singular facets in arrays of hundreds, thousands. The workplace illuminates but a sliver of who they are, leaving the rest to wishful extrapolation. 

The others don’t see the soft, sweet, vulnerable Jamie that Dani does. They haven’t won the privilege of her humor, the step beyond dry remark that plies irony and absurdity in ways that makes Dani laugh aloud. They don’t see the bossiness and the protective ferocity Dani is capable of exerting. Nor have they ever glimpsed the horrors - both native and foreign to her body - that make her a prisoner in her own trembling flesh. 

In fairness, Dani considers all the traits she hasn’t seen of everyone else. She wonders if Stephen possesses special talents or acuities that Dani hasn’t noticed past his obscuring big shoulders and general density. Maybe Erin - reserved, dour, but hardworking - opens up to roaring laughter in the right company. Maybe soft-spoken Davie with the bright smile and excellent customer service manner conceals silent woes and insecurities. 

And maybe Amy is far more forgiving and accepting than they’ve given her credit for. 

The next day, Jamie tends the nursery, redeeming her self-opinion through hard dirty work and solitary introspection. Meanwhile, Dani heads to the shop early and fulfills her morning checklist in record time, wanting to reserve plenty of room for an important conversation. Typically, Amy arrives fifteen minutes before her scheduled shift. Today, that buffer is twenty-five minutes. Dani can only interpret that as relatable eagerness to put the atmosphere of unease at rest, regardless of what solution achieves it.

They sit down at the front counter, where orange morning light glows like fire in the glass. Amy has brought coffee - a good sign. She passes Dani a styrofoam cup and a paper bag of cream and sugar packets. While incorporating their additions, Amy confesses, “I’ll be honest. I’m glad I’m talking to you and not Jamie right now. She can be a little...”

“Hard to access?” Dani knowingly supplies. 

“Yeah,” Amy answers with a laugh. “She always gives good advice, but she doesn’t say shit about herself. It’s all plants, plants, procedure, plants. I’ve been here like, more than two years. You’d think I would’ve known more than nothing about her by now. Well... I guess I do now.”

Dani peers down into her beige coffee, still swirling from the stroke of her last stir, before snapping the lid back on. “She’s, um. She’s really upset with herself right now. I know Jamie doesn’t like to let you guys see certain parts of her, but, believe me... she cares. So much. She wants to be a leader for you, someone you can rely on. If she lets on too much, you’ll start to see that she’s just as complicated as anybody else.”

While thinking, Amy quirks her lips. “Is that a bad thing? Hell, maybe it’s better to put it all out there. That way we don’t have to wonder when it’s going to suddenly jump out, you get what I mean? No tension, no bad surprises. Oh, shit. I’m not saying yesterday was a bad surprise. Sorry. Okay, it _was_ a surprise, but, not really, just— Never mind.”

“I understand what you mean,” Dani reassures her. “And about that... I owe you a huge apology. I’m so sorry. We both are. We should never have put you in that uncomfortable position. We were being really dumb.”

“It’s because of... those, right?” Amy points at Dani’s ring, on rather prominent display where her hands rest atop the counter. “I first noticed Jamie’s two weeks ago.”

Her instinct is to retract her hands from sight, but Dani wills herself to remain motionless. “Did you already know? Before yesterday?”

“Did _I_ know? Who _didn’t?_ We were absolutely about to draw straws for someone to ask.” She collects their empty sugar and cream packets in a sweep of her hands, discards them in a trash can behind the counter, then says, “Well, I guess Stephen didn’t know. But he kind of refused to know. Like, he wouldn’t believe it even after we laid out all the evidence. Oh, he’s going to be devastated.”

“What? Why?”

Amy is pleased to answer, “Because he’s been crushing pretty hard on Jamie for a while now. I told him: Stephen, she’s way out of your league. And now she’s wearing a ring. Sorry, dude. Whether it’s Dani or not, you’re out of the game. Don’t think he was ever in it, but I didn’t say that.”

She’s shocked. “Huh,” Dani vocalizes, folding a thoughtful hand beneath her chin. “I never realized.” After a sip of coffee, she comments, “He’s so young, though.”

“I _know!_ ”

Over dinner, Dani relays to Jamie how the day went. There’s no crisis. Amy was very understanding; good-humored about the whole ordeal, actually. While, true, she may never look upon them in the same light again, Amy isn’t going anywhere. No one is. According to Amy’s testimony, Davie has an older stepbrother in a similar arrangement, Erin couldn’t care less, and Stephen’s departure is still slated for September. 

Relief visibly washes over Jamie, alleviating the concern of her expression and the taut pinch of her shoulders. She nevertheless downs a generous swig of the wine she’s poured herself, efficiently prepared to satisfy scenarios of both grief and celebration. 

“There’s one more thing,” Dani says, unable to contain her amusement before the information has even left her. “Amy told me that Stephen has a huge crush on you.”

Jamie pauses eating altogether to look her straight in the eye. “You’re joking. That’s what’s happening here, right? Just having a wee laugh?”

Dani _is_ laughing, but assures her, “I am not joking. No wonder he’s so happy to help you with the nursery! Being all big and strong for you out there.” She pokes Jamie in the side and is immediately swatted away. 

With an unsettled raise of her brow, Jamie returns to her dinner. “Think I’m old enough to be his mum.”

“No you’re not. He’s twenty-three.”

“ _Technically—_ ”

Dani silences her with another well-aimed poke, eliciting, “Oi! Cut it out,” before saying, quietly as she leans near, “But can you really blame him? I mean... You keep getting sexier every year.” She reaches for Jamie’s wine glass and tips it to her smiling lips. 

Jamie taps her fingertips on the fabric of her placemat, stifling a laugh. “And you know what you’ve gotten, over the years?” She reclaims her wine glass after Dani lowers it. “ _Much_ better at flirting.”

Over the next few hours, Dani considers which of Jamie’s qualities have smitten Stephen. Does he enjoy the grounded attitude of no-nonsense she brings to work? Does he admire her incredible gardening knowledge? Has he managed to glimpse past the surface, to where poetry and love motivate her every thought, every action, in secret? Has he seen her laugh, seen her cry? Has he merely idolized a false representation in his heart of the woman he wishes to see, rather than the woman Jamie is?

Maybe Stephen just thinks she’s pretty. In fairness, that was Dani’s thought, too, the day she first saw Jamie trudging dirt-dusted and work-weary into the manor’s kitchen. Maybe he’s also noticed how splendidly Jamie wears the toil of any garden like a promise of further wholehearted dedication in countless other realms of life. That sight alone is more than adequate kindling for an undying blaze of adoration.

It’s dizzying to comprehend how reality functions when each person amounts to dozens of varying interpretations. How does everything keep from fraying and falling apart, when all of existence is composed of mystery and contradiction?

Later that night, on the couch, Dani carefully threads her fingers through the waves of Jamie’s hair as she lounges across her lap and reads aloud from a book. She loves listening to Jamie read; hearing her contemplative, articulate, soothing cadence honor every text that touches her lips.

“Every face,” Jamie reads, “every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned - in search of what? It is the same with books. What do we seek through millions of pages?”

**xx. (doors of opportunity)**

Married life is wonderful. Nothing has changed, and yet, everything has changed. The paradox is borne at the conjunction of familiar routine and a new light under which routine is performed.

Making the bed every morning is a passionless chore no longer, but the loving and reverential maintenance of their marriage’s soul: the altar at which they cherish one another during their most vulnerable hours, physically reaffirm their union, and dream.

Similar labors follow this transformative pattern. Dinner is company first and sustenance second, while a voluntarily-provided batch of fresh laundry is nothing short of a remote caress. Their daily rituals have always contained these qualities, but their marriage has lent priority and visibility to the previously implicit, through immense wealth of devotion.

In the private sanctum of their home, Dani knows only comfort. Years ago she and Jamie fell against one another like pieces of complimentary geometry, and they’ve never let go since. Not once. And knowing they never will is a reassurance Dani shall serenely wade through for the rest of her life, come what may. 

She hasn’t seen the Lady again. April has ended, marking over two months since Dani’s vision. Tentatively, she entertains the possibility of inconsequential hallucination. A trick of the light. The product of fatigue or a poor night’s rest.

It’s false hope, of course. A desperate flail against the beginning of the end. But she clings to it with all her might, for what else is a person to do when confronted by death, except struggle and fight until all semblance of hope is depleted? The reserve of willpower Dani keeps is vast. She has a life that pleases her, places to see and things to do, and a spouse she loves more and more each day as living proof of the heart’s illimitable capacity. 

Dani has _everything_. She couldn’t be better armed and motivated to wage the greatest war of her life. 

On a mundane Wednesday evening, one week after Jamie’s birthday, Dani showers, dries her hair, and prepares for bed. Minutes before their floating, but generally respected weekday bedtime, Jamie remains absent. Come to think of it, they haven’t crossed paths since dinner. The last time she saw her, Jamie was sorting through the mail in the kitchen.

Dani looks for her. She finds Jamie on the couch, hunched over a letter on the coffee table. It takes Dani a second to realize she’s crying; she hears shuddering breaths, sees quaking shoulders and wringing hands. Without delay she approaches, already aching.

Dani sits beside her, frames her shoulders in gentle hands, and dares to ask, “Jamie, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

Jamie shakes her head. Her tearful stare is fixed on the creased paper, marked thoroughly in ink. She rasps, “It’s from Denny,” and tries to swallow the distress inhibiting her voice. “The fuck is he writing for, right? He... He says he recently learned that... our mum died. Sometime in January. Says he got a phone call from a debt collector, and that’s how he found out.”

The news leaves Dani nonplussed. As far as she can recall, Jamie has never reserved anything but ire for her mother. She’s rigidly disavowed any desire whatsoever to find or speak to her, even indirectly. So why, then, does Jamie mourn her? 

“He asked around,” Jamie continues, wiping away the tears trailing her cheeks while trying to blink away new ones. “Found out where she’d been living. She was sick. Had been for long time, on... poison. It killed her in the end. And now—” Her hands tense, fingernails curling to imprint crescents in her own flesh. “—I’ll never get to laugh in her face and say, despite your best efforts, Mum... I survived. You couldn’t destroy me.” After a short, mirthless laugh, Jamie adds, “Guess I can still spit on her fucking grave, though.”

Dani strokes her shoulder with a thumb. She should be alarmed by Jamie’s sudden inclination toward wrath, but she’s not. In doleful certainty, Dani says, “You wouldn’t do that.”

No, she wouldn’t. Hatred is a poison all the same, as deadly to those who wield it as those it targets.

The resolution of Jamie’s loathing fails, along with the dam she’s erected against her tears. Huddled small and weak in Dani’s arms, unable to steel herself with anger, Jamie bows under sorrow; under the weight of a lifetime’s squandered opportunity. 

Somewhere, waning beside this plane of reality, is the diaphanous shadow of Jamie maturing in the company of her brothers, Jamie spending holidays before a home’s hearth and not gazing at the gray oblivion of prison cell concrete, and Jamie having parents to call after marrying the woman of her dreams. 

Jamie does not mourn the mother she had. Jamie mourns the mother Louise might have been. 

The night is long with grief. Jamie volunteers to remove herself from the bedroom so Dani can rest. The couch will suit her fine, she says. It’s an absurd proposition. Even if Jamie did leave the room, Dani wouldn’t have been able to sleep without her anyway, especially while keenly aware of her suffering. 

In the dark, Dani holds Jamie beneath the bedsheets. Whenever silence becomes too much to bear, she whispers stray anecdotes against her head. She talks about work, a movie she saw last week, and reminisces, briefly, about Bly. Curiously, when Dani is scraping the bottom of her recollection for something worth sharing, she unearths her earliest memory and soothes Jamie with it more than any prior disclosure.

“I think I was two,” says Dani. “Maybe three? I was with my dad at a grocery store, or a convenience store. Something like that. I can’t remember what we were there for, but I do remember these candy dispensers at the front, near the door. My dad put some pennies in my hand and told me to pick whatever I wanted. I remember standing there, staring at all my choices, and I... freeze. I can’t decide. My dad starts getting impatient with me. Then he says, something like... Life is full of hard decisions. And someday soon, they’re gonna cost you more than pennies.”

Jamie gives a sharp exhale - an amused sound - and fondly strokes the forearm Dani has tucked around her waist. 

“You know what’s funny?” Dani pensively notes. “I’m not even sure if that memory is real or not. When you go that far back, how can you be sure you didn’t dream it? I can’t ask my dad anymore, so it’s just there now, stuck in my head. For what it is.”

After a few steadying breaths, Jamie says, “When I was round five or six, my mum bought me a new pair of shoes for school. They were pretty decent, and we never had much money, so. Naturally, I played in the mud with them on. And I couldn’t understand why she was so cross with me when I came home. It’s just mud. You can scrub it right off. So she tells me - after she’s done shouting her head off - that she’s tired of sending me on my way in old worn-out shoes for the whole town to see. That’s why she bought me new ones. So we wouldn’t look so poor. When I covered them in mud... no one could see them.”

Dani kisses the back of her head and asks, “Do you remember what they looked like?”

“Leather, I think,” answers Jamie. “Probably fake leather. Shiny, though. Reddish-brown, with straps and buckles.”

Silence carries them to sleep. Dani wakes first to the gentle heat of sunrise on her face. She glances at the red numbers displayed in the face of the digital clock on the nightstand and determines their alarm will sound in fifteen minutes. That time is spent safeguarding Jamie’s sleep within the stillness of her arm. 

Historically, Dani has never spared their economic classes of origin much consideration. It’s not particularly relevant to their relationship. As soon as they got together, money became a pooled resource, flowing between them as freely as water. But she can’t forget Jamie’s shock, years ago, upon learning Dani owned a house in addition to their first apartment together. Nor can she forget Jamie’s hesitance regarding the sale of her heirlooms, and her queasiness at how much their account balance spiked after Dani deposited the first round of checks.

Disparity seeps in from many places. It’s in their formal education. It’s in their tales of childhood. And it’s here _now_ , most terribly pronounced, in Dani’s decision to make some phone calls she’s been inexcusably procrastinating. 

While Jamie has no mother to call, Dani has _two_ \- or something close to it. 

Two days pass.

For nearly three straight minutes, the handset has idled in Dani’s grip, emitting the flat, rapid pulse of a dead line. She’s mustering the courage to dial, thus far to no success. Rehearsing her speech only helps so much. Dani considers sending her message in written format like Jamie, who sent notice to her brother Mikey yesterday.

It’s late evening now, and Dani is operating at the mercy of time zones. Any further inaction will see this thorny task spilling over into the next day and troubling that one, too. It’s time to act. Jamie will want access to the bedroom soon. Dani can’t stay shut inside waiting for a mythical moment of inner peace forever, because none are coming to save her. 

Dashing her mother’s last desperate hopes of having a daughter beholden to _normalcy_ will be a discomforting and awkward affair. That is unavoidable. But it needs to be done.

Finally, Dani references her address book and dials. Her heart pounds in her chest with bruising force as one ring becomes two, then several. When Dani hears her mother’s voice, she greets her, “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“Dani, it’s nice to hear from you. I’m doing all right. How about yourself? How are you and—” Karen snaps her fingers twice in remembrance. “Jamie?”

Her successful recollection makes Dani smile. She feels safe enough to proceed, “Actually, Jamie and I are... well, it’s kinda the reason why I’m calling.” 

“Oh. Did something happen?”

A faint inflection of optimism in her mother’s voice sabotages what meager confidence Dani managed to cobble together. Dani knows her well enough to surmise her thought process: Karen is likely anticipating a breakup and has miles of reassurances lined up about affording men another chance. 

Dani absently pokes at a seam in the duvet while replying, “You could say that. We, um.” She shuts her eyes and draws a breath, thinking truth to be best administered swiftly. “We decided to get married. We _are_ married. Since March.”

When Karen doesn’t respond, Dani elaborates, “I know it’s not legal - at least, not yet - but, we’re considering ourselves married in the ways that matter. I should’ve called sooner, but I... I know how weird and difficult this is for you.”

Her mother’s silence persists. It’s painful. Every vacant moment is a needle piercing Dani’s resolve. She balances the handset between her ear and shoulder while picking at the hem of her sock, fidgeting. 

There’s a knock at the door. A second later, Jamie peeks her head in to check if Dani is still on the phone. Upon spotting Dani’s hard, pensive expression, she silently retreats to preserve her privacy. 

At last, Karen says, “Thank you for telling me. I appreciate it.”

Before oppressive silence can engulf her again, Dani says, “We’re going to Paris in June. I’m excited, you know, to see all the art, and the culture. I’ll pick something out for you while I’m there. Something really nice. I’ll mail it when we get back.”

“Can you be honest with me, Dani? Can I ask you a question?”

She swallows around the anxiety impeding her voice. “Of course.”

“Do you feel safe out there, living that way?”

Dani hesitates before responding. “I mean, we’ve never had any problems. We keep to ourselves, though, for the most part. We don’t tell anyone unless we know it’s safe. Also... Vermont isn’t the same as Iowa. It’s a little different out here.”

“Well, good,” says Karen. “That’s always been my biggest concern. I hope you realize that. Sanctimony, morality... those are the least of my worries. I only objected so strongly because I knew your life was going to be harder now. I thought you were being foolish and self-destructive. But it’s starting to become apparent, at least to me, that you might turn out to be the first to escape a long line of unhappy marriages in our family. My mother was unhappy. She once told me _her_ mother had been unhappy, too. If you’ve found a way to avoid that, frankly I don’t care who you marry. I’m getting too old to care about the propriety of one’s happiness.”

“Thank you,” says Dani, smiling meekly. 

“Take care of each other, all right? Oh, and congratulations, Dani. Enjoy your life.” 

“Okay,” she says. “Bye, Mom. I love you. Talk to you again soon.”

Dani presses her thumb into the hook switch and dials another number before she can reconsider. One more call, she reassures herself. One more, and her conscience will be at ease. 

This time, she opens with, “Hi, Judy. It’s me, Dani. Danielle.”

“Oh, Danielle! My God, it’s been ages. How’ve you been?”

Dani hears the clatter of dinnerware and vague voices in the background, emitted from a television. “I’m good,” she replies. “How about you? How’s Carson? And your husband?”

“We’re all just fine. Carson’s in Michigan these days, but he always visits around Christmas. But enough about us.You’re still in Vermont, right? At least, that’s what Karen told me last.”

“Yes. It’s really nice here. I, um. I know I should call more often.” Dani starts to brace herself all over again. “Judy, I hope you know how much I appreciated you growing up, and... after everything that happened. You were always so nice to me. You were always looking out for me, like a mom would.”

“Danielle, you know you’re family to us. You always will be.”

Dani says, “I guess that’s why I wanted to call you. I... have some news. I got married in March.”

Understandably, Judy is speechless for a time. Ten years ago, give or take a few months, Judy’s son was due to undergo the same rite. Even so, she responds with kindness, “Why didn’t you call me earlier? I could’ve sent you a gift. I could’ve attended your wedding.”

“It’s okay,” says Dani. “It wasn’t a big ceremony or anything. It was just something small and intimate.”

Their conversation fades again, accommodating time for processing. Dani can hear the television in the background playing a commercial. 

“You know it... hurts,” Judy admits. “Of course it hurts. It hurts every day. But that’s no reason for any of us to get stuck. So I’m glad for you - _genuinely_ glad - that you’re continuing to live your life. Edmund would’ve wanted you to be happy.”

“I know,” says Dani, weakly. The tumult of the truth is too complex, too riddled with good intentions manifesting as cruelty to prescribe any response but, “I know.”

“Can you tell me anything about him? What’s his name?”

She’s distraught at the junction of choice. Does Dani’s current life retroactively invalidate her relationship with Eddie, and along with it, his final hopes and wishes? Whether or not that interpretation is fated to haunt Judy, it will cross her mind at some point. What is the value of a truth that only stands to inflict pain? What is her duty to the woman who became her mother when her biological one was nowhere to be found? 

She’ll know eventually, Dani realizes. If she doesn’t tell Judy now, she’ll wrestle the information from her or Karen at a later time. Truth is an inevitability. Knowing this, Dani’s choice is reduced to a matter of timing and control. She’d rather provide her own statement than let someone else’s account - so severed and distant from the immensity of love Dani wishes to establish - populate Judy’s knowledge. 

“Judy, I think I owe you my honesty,” Dani starts. “I’ve spent too much time not saying things when they needed to be said. I can’t live like that anymore. Now, I know what I’m about to tell you might sound strange, or upsetting, and I’d totally understand if you wouldn’t want to talk to me for a while.”

“Jesus Christ, Danielle. Is he a serial killer?”

“No.” Dani manages a laugh, but her austerity returns immediately. “No, I uh. I married a woman.”

“Wait. You did what?”

She repeats, “I married a woman. And I _really_ love her, Judy, I do. I know it’s unconventional, but she makes me so happy. We have a good life. A great life. I have everything I could ever want.” 

After a substantial pause, Judy says, “I’m... going to call Karen. Is that okay? Do you mind?”

“No, I— I understand. She knows.”

The conversation ends with a click on the other line before Dani can even begin to feel her own dismay and relief rolling in like a storm. She lies back on the duvet, clutching the handset to her chest, and shuts her eyes tightly.

It’s over. For now. A thousand miles away, Judy and Karen are verbally dicing her personal life to reductive morsels, but Dani isn’t fazed by their gossip. The truth isn’t Dani’s burden to bear anymore. It’s theirs to grapple with, theirs to digest peacefully or fitfully. And there _will_ be opportunities to discuss it again and aid their understanding in the future. They’ve left the door open. 

Meanwhile, Jamie stares at a door that’s been shut for three decades, hiding a room undergoing demolition.

Dani flips through the address book while thinking, reading the names of business contacts, services, and friends. Some pages are dog-eared for frequent reference. Others haven’t been accessed in years. She pauses at Mikey’s name and reviews his information. He and Jamie have communicated sporadically over the last several years, always in writing. Jamie stows all his correspondences in her nightstand along with Owen’s and Henry’s. Dani’s love letters reside there, too, tucked into the back cover of one Jamie’s favorite novels.

From what Dani gleans from Mikey’s occasional updates, he and Elaine have two daughters. By now the eldest would be six, and the youngest, three. They’ve never met them. In fact, they haven’t seen Mikey since his wedding in 1988. Eons ago. At the time, Dani and Jamie had just officially started dating and had been living together for less than year. The first of June is nearly upon them again, marking eight years exactly since the wedding. 

Mikey is the only family Jamie trades a modicum of affection with. Denny is a lost cause, more or less. Sending notice of their mother’s death was the most consideration he’s reportedly spared Jamie perhaps _ever_ , and it was only a formality. Dani prefers not to wonder if Denny’s entire motivation for writing was simply to trouble Jamie, because that level of malice is obscene. She spares him the benefit of the doubt for her own sanity. 

As for Mikey, however... that door is still ajar, waiting for a nudge.

When Dani emerges from the bedroom, she finds Jamie seated crookedly in the armchair, lacing a pair of work boots. At her approach, Jamie asks, “Everything all right?”

“Mm-hm,” Dani responds in a hum, distracted otherwise. She kneels beside the chair, caught in the direct glare of an angled reading lamp. By laying a hand on the armrest, Dani engages Jamie’s complete, albeit confused attention. She says, “There’s something else I want to give you. But first, I need to ask if you want it.”

Cautiously, Jamie inquires, “Is it a sex thing?”

She closes her eyes and sighs a laugh. “No, not this time. I, um. I was looking through the address book, and I remembered that your brother’s anniversary is the first of June. We’ll be in Paris that week. Would you... want to ask if he’s interested in meeting up while we’re there? For a day, maybe?”

Jamie stares into space. She rubs her temple and says, “And what if he doesn’t want to see me?”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” says Dani, softly, firmly. “Do _you_ want to see him again?”

A shallow nod accompanies Jamie’s absent rubbing at a scuff on the toe of her boot. “Yeah,” she answers. “I do.”

That is all Dani requires. She rises to squeeze Jamie’s hand and kiss her head, issuing another promise, another vow, then steps away. 


	11. Chapter 11

**xxi. (who shall inherit)**

It’s the first day of June on a continent far from home.

Along with a dozen other visitors, Dani and Jamie wait at the edge of a gorgeous ornate fountain gleaming under white sunlight. Water spouts from the mouths of gilded statues - repentant figures of old myth - arranged on three marble tiers. At its peak rises a goddess and her children, the sun and the moon, triumphant. 

While they idle, Dani admires the canal shining and stretching toward the horizon like a mirror for the heavens. Beside her, Jamie fusses. She prods at the ground path with her toe, wrings a paper brochure in her hands, and frowns whenever gentle gusts carry fountain mist into her face. 

Dani asks if she’s okay. 

A faint, apprehensive smile flickers across her face. “It’s just... been a while.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine. He sounded excited to see you again.” 

Jamie purses her lips and nods slowly. 

Attempting to distract her, Dani says, “So,” and gestures about the regal, historical landscape. “What do you think of _this_ garden? Let’s hear your professional opinion.”

After a faked survey and a shrug, Jamie quips, “It’s not so great. I could do all this, you know. Just find me some gold leaf paint and a golf cart.”

The first event of their honeymoon - so postponed they’ll have to pretend to be newlyweds again - is a day with Mikey’s family. Dani will never understand why he and Jamie didn’t arrange something sooner, despite exchanging letters for eight years. Doubt is a likely culprit. Jamie, at least, seemed convinced that Mikey wouldn’t want to see her after the Denny fiasco at his wedding. She saw it as an unforgivable offense. But Jamie is too hard on herself, too frequently, and Dani regrets not stepping in earlier to facilitate this.

It’s taken a long time to comprehensively grasp Jamie’s behaviors. Her process of reasoning. The standards of her self-regard. Jamie tends to pull away from the alienating world. She hides in familiarity, in routines and trusted circles. So much is not worth her effort, when so much ends in heartbreak.

It is, of course, a self-defeating mindset. Dani knows what self-defeat looks and feels like, and she wishes it upon no one, least of all her wife. As Jamie guides Dani away from harmful tendencies, Dani pledges to do the same for her. Whenever she can. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Dani spots rapid motion. Through meandering crowds dash two young girls in pale striped dresses, followed closely by the voice of their mother calling after them, “Girls, no running! Sarah, hold your sister’s hand!”

When Dani catches sight of the parents, she touches Jamie’s shoulder to direct her attention. Gazes meet, broad smiles erupt, and Jamie’s anxiety evaporates upon seeing Mikey - dressed to tourist comforts, hairline receded far enough to level out with his scarring, and a few pounds heavier than they remember him - gaining eager speed in his step to meet them.

He and Jamie tightly embrace. 

“Look at you,” Jamie says through a grin, “and your monstrously beautiful family. Look at you.”

“Look at _you_ ,” insists Mikey. “You look fantastic. Both of you. Hang on. Are you going gray?”

She sharply retorts, “Are you going bald?”

While they grapple and tease each other, Dani greets Elaine, who’s managed to successfully corral her daughters and tow them along. 

“It’s so nice to see you again,” Elaine tells her as they part from a hug. “And congratulations. It’s such wonderful news.”

Mikey echoes the sentiment while receiving Dani with the same warmth. “I’m so happy for you two,” he says, then turns to his daughters. They’ve already wandered several feet away to stand at the edge of the fountain’s enclosing pool. He bids them, “Girls, come say hello.”

The pair return, regarding the strangers with more caution than curiosity. Dani knows their names from Mikey’s letters. Sarah, the eldest at six, has dark hair and dark eyes like her mother, whereas the three-year-old, Bethany, sports unruly golden-brown locks. Genetically, they’re too removed from Jamie to bear much observable resemblance, but Dani swears Sarah’s eyes are the same shape.

Both offer a shy, “Hello.” 

Mikey places a hand on each of their shoulders and indicates Jamie with a gesture. “This is Jamie. She’s your Auntie. And this—” He redirects their focus. “—is Danielle. Dani. Consider her the same.”

While Dani anticipated Mikey’s support, she never expected to be so readily welcomed into his family. Words cannot express the depths of her gratitude. She can only meet his kind gaze and beam with gladness. 

They’ve brought something for the girls. Jamie kneels and produces two identical white boxes containing glass lockets with sweet alyssum and forget-me-nots pressed between the oval panes. She grew the flowers herself, and Dani arranged them on the glass via precision of tweezers. 

The pretty gifts generate excitement and erode the barrier of trepidation. The six-year-old independently dons her locket with ease, but Jamie must help the younger one with hers. 

Bethany giggles as the shiny chain comes to rest about her collar. 

“What’s funny?” Jamie asks her. 

She brightly answers in her little voice, “Jamie’s a boy’s name.”

“Is it?”

A nod illustrates her certainty.

“Well,” says Jamie, patient and pleasant, “not anymore. See, I took it from the boys because I knew I’d make a better Jamie than any of them.”

Bethany laughs again. 

At Dani’s opportunity to meet them, Sarah compliments her elegant teardrop earrings and asks if they’re real gold. She’s impressed when Dani responds affirmatively; they were a Christmas gift from Jamie some years ago. Bethany’s reaction to Dani is a tiny gasp and an exclamation, “You look like a princess!”

“What a sweet thing to say.” Though flattered, Dani has to ask through a smile, “Why do you think that?”

When Bethany fails to articulate her reasoning, Jamie supposes, “Probably the long hair. Very storybook.”

“Mm.” Dani nods in comprehension. 

They explore the gardens together. Mikey hoists his littlest one onto his shoulders to carry and delight with a superior vantage point. Elaine accompanies. Meanwhile, Sarah strides between her new aunts, linking the three by occupying each hand with one of theirs. As they pass beneath the cool shade of manicured trees lining the path, Sarah punctuates the ambient babble of water, birds, and other visitors with a multitude of questions. She asks where Dani is from. She asks how old they are. And she asks, keenly aware of some unspoken, irregular element at play, “You’re really both our aunts?”

Jamie replies, “I’m your dad’s sister.”

“I thought he only had one sister. Auntie Claire.”

Mikey overhears. He slows, falling back to their position to explain, “I’ve two sets of siblings, and two sets of parents. When I was a baby, Jamie was my big sister. She took care of me until we got new families.”

Sarah issues a classic, “Why?”

He spends a moment composing a suitable reply, squinting through bright daylight. “Our first parents couldn’t take care of us anymore,” Mikey resolves, “so the government found us new ones. We didn’t see each other again for a long time. But we’re here together now, and it’s quite wonderful.”

Again Dani is surprised at Mikey’s honesty, as well as his diplomacy in addressing the deplorable neglect that characterized their early childhood. He truly is Jamie’s brother, she thinks. They both utilize speech so effortlessly, satisfying the needs of any moment with such striking emotional intelligence. 

The next segment of Sarah’s interrogation targets Dani. She breaks their three-abreast chain by releasing their hands, then turns to peer up at Dani with her locket fondly clutched in her fingers. Sarah asks, “Are you Daddy’s sister, too?”

All eyes are upon Dani. Even Elaine’s, who they’ve caught up to in time for her to eavesdrop. Dani approaches the topic carefully, “No. I’m not. But... I’m, um—”

Elaine unexpectedly interjects. She smooths a hand over Sarah’s hair and gently clarifies, “Dani is married to Jamie, like how your father and I are married. She’s your Auntie by marriage.”

Sarah scrutinizes them, seeking confirmation. Proof, even. Initially, Dani only provides a hopeful smile, but then an idea strikes her. She extends her left hand, showing Sarah her wedding ring. Upon Dani’s implicit request, Jamie corroborates with a briefer display of her own. 

Adequately convinced, Sarah says, “I didn’t know two girls could get married. Did you both wear dresses to your wedding?”

“Come to think of it,” Jamie muses aloud, “neither of us wore a dress.”

When Sarah notices Mikey lowering Bethany’s feet back to the ground and handing her a snack, she accosts him for one, too. The current issue is forgotten, and they’ve lost her attention. 

Dani is beside herself with awe. “Just like that,” she says, “and it’s over. Painless.”

“When we had children,” Elaine tells them, “we decided that we would never lie to them. Some things, of course, we’ll omit, but... For the most part, I think lying to children insults their intelligence. They are far more capable of kindness and understanding than even we are. Best not to waste those years denying them tools and information to become decent people.”

Her statement reverberates in Dani’s conscience all day. As a former teacher, she feels precisely the same. However, Dani has no experience tackling the world’s divisive issues in the classroom. Those tend not to be found in fourth grade curriculum, nor is discussion of them typically appreciated by parents. Caught without a point of reference, Dani stammered. She wonders what she might’ve said had Elaine not rescued her. The truth, perhaps. Or some variant of it. 

Years ago, Miles and Flora didn’t bat an eye at the obvious affection blooming between Dani and Jamie during their last days at the manor. They understood and loved them no less. It’s a shame, how time has inured Dani to stiff convictions of adults, and revoked the delight of conversing with children, so wise in their trusting innocence and belief in a world where the kind always prevail. Until, that is, they are inevitably shown otherwise.

Fourth graders compose a wide spectrum of naïveté and cynicism. Dani has witnessed children inhabiting every region of it, from the overly sheltered to the horribly traumatized. It’s remarkable how anyone survives the adolescent rite of disillusionment. Maybe no one truly does. Maybe that is where cruelty is born and perpetuated: from the wounds of injustice.

Over the next hour, Dani and Elaine walk together, describing their lives since last meeting. There’s no shortage of milestones for Dani to recall. Moving apartments. Jamie’s two-year degree and gaining dual citizenship last month. Their nursery. Their employees and new assistant manager. They’ve lived so much, and so well.

All the while, they monitor Jamie and Mikey on the path ahead, entertaining the girls. Jamie kneels at the low barrier of a flowerbed and points out various blossoms, naming each to her audience’s rapt attention. When Bethany spots a honeybee landing on Jamie’s forearm, she startles and flees to her father’s side. But her aunt is unfazed. She lifts her arm, perfectly calm, to demonstrate how easily a short puff of air from one’s lips sends the honeybee on its way without a hint of conflict. 

They spend the day together. They return to the city to see the Notre-Dame Cathedral and its majestic spire impaling a cloudless cerulean sky. Dani finds its limestone silhouette imposing and sublime. Conversely, Jamie deems it garish and structurally questionable. She thinks the spire visually conflicts with the rest of the architecture, but Dani disagrees, saying it’s appropriately Gothic. Elaine imparts a bit of history: the original spire, constructed in the thirteenth century, was restored to a taller height during the 1800s. Jamie says, “All the more the reason to get rid of it.”

The group dines at an outdoor bistro when the horizon is blushing pink and the streetlamps are aglow. Moths flitter about their heads like flecks of ash. Sarah feeds a pigeon under her chair to her parents’ disdain, for the availability of food attracts others for them to continually scare away. While chatting, Mikey jokes, “Allow me to draw your attention to an age-old truism: happy wife, happy life. In your case, it’s a two-way street. _Ideal_ conditions.”

Dani has them laughing harder minutes later, when she volunteers to communicate with the restaurant staff. She took French language courses in high school and college, endowing her with basic conversational skills and, incidentally, the highest degree of fluency at their table. But when she exercises her knowledge in possibly the most atrocious accent the country has ever suffered, irony splits their sides. Dani isn’t upset. They’ll remember this moment forever, because of her.

While waiting for their food to arrive, Jamie holds her hand beneath the table. 

Later that night, after parting ways with Mikey and his family - who are continuing their holiday closer to home in time for Sarah to return to school - Dani and Jamie retreat to their hotel room. 

Dani lounges in bed with a French fashion magazine spread over her lap, reading under a yellow halo of lamplight. Nearby, on the nightstand, are two emptied champagne glasses. The balcony door is propped open with a chair, admitting a pleasant late-spring breeze and visual access to the lovely nocturnal cityscape. Distant windows and traffic glitter like stars above. The skyline broods, dense with shadow. From one far corner of the balcony the Eiffel Tower is visible, peeking out between the pale bulky faces of two buildings. 

For tomorrow they’ve planned the Louvre and dinner with Owen. The third day shall host shopping and spontaneity; visiting galleries, smaller museums, and parks. On the fourth and final day they’ll visit the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. 

Jamie dresses near the foot of the bed. “I’m so happy for Mikey,” she says. “Fucking ecstatic, really. He’s got such a beautiful family, and those two girls... are _scary_ clever, and curious. Funny, too. Funnier than me by far.”

Dani smiles and pats the empty space beside her in invitation. Jamie accepts. She settles in at her side as Dani drapes the maroon bedsheets over their legs, enabling them to huddle closer and warmer together. Jamie rests her head on Dani’s shoulder to view the magazine with her, while Dani slides an arm around her waist, sharing contentment. The dull throb of champagne hums through her head. 

After some time appreciating the magazine’s images without trying to penetrate the printed text’s language barrier, Jamie asks, unprompted, “Was there ever a time in your life when you wanted to have kids?”

Dani affords the question serious consideration. “I think I already had them, in a way,” she answers. “All my fourth graders. Even when they cycle through every year... you never really forget any of them. You don’t forget the good ones, and you _definitely_ don’t forget the bad ones. I loved them all like my own.” Knowing she hasn’t satisfied the extent of Jamie’s curiosity, Dani lowers the magazine to study her hands, thinking. “Back when I was engaged to Eddie, I kinda figured it was going to happen eventually. Not that I actively wanted it, I... just accepted it’s what people do, after you get married. You start having kids.”

Jamie nods in understanding, but doesn’t speak again. She’s obviously hesitant to broach the topic further, not wanting to bring up any unpleasant feelings or memories. But it doesn’t hurt Dani so much anymore. It’s a muted pain, an old bruise that hasn’t faded. One that only evokes vague tenderness when prodded. It’s more a suggestion of pain than pain itself. 

Willing to sustain the conversation, Dani returns her question. “What about you?”

“Think I would’ve been too scared to screw them up,” Jamie admits, softly. There’s a subtle twinge of remorse in her voice, suggesting she might’ve entertained the idea at some point, but quickly dismissed it as an impossibility. 

Dani tells her, “You wouldn’t have. Your brother’s kids adored you. Didn’t you see how sad they looked when we said goodbye?” After watching Jamie silently evaluate the truth in her words, Dani leans in to chastely kiss her and whisper against her lips, “You would’ve made a great parent.”

Reassurance saves Jamie’s mood. “You think if things had played out a little differently, we might’ve had kids?”

Still hovering an inch away, Dani says in humor, “I don’t think slightly different circumstances would’ve changed the fact that we physically cannot do that.”

A laugh colors Jamie’s sigh. “There are other ways out there, you know. People get resourceful.” She lays a hand on Dani’s thigh. “If, in some fantastical reality where we _could’ve,_ physically—”

Unable to forego such a marvelous opportunity to tease, Dani interrupts, “We would’ve had _so_ many babies—”

“ _No_ ,” Jamie objects, blushing hard through amusement. “Two is a good number.”

Laughing, Dani insists, “ _So_ many, Jamie.” She kisses her, savoring the lingering glow of Jamie’s furious blush. When they part, she adds, rather relentlessly, “I would’ve given you as many as you wanted.” The hand folded around Jamie settles on her lower back, bracing them together.

Despite flustering, Jamie manages to root herself in profundity while saying, “You gave me today.”

Of course she gave her today. Dani would supply an endless stream of days like today, full of happiness and hope and love. It’s precisely what Jamie gives her, _every_ day. 

Jamie initiates their next kiss, firmer than those preceding it. “I _have_ to thank you,” she says. “Seeing them again... it meant everything. You do so much for me. Constantly. Tell me what I can do to thank you. To repay you.” 

At the ample insinuation in her tone, desire grows in Dani’s core, painting her gaze and voice. “That’s the thing about being married,” says Dani, speaking against the corner of Jamie’s mouth. “You don’t ever have to worry about repaying me—”

The hand on Jamie’s back eases its pressure and withdraws to put space between them; enough for her fingertips, hidden beneath the bedsheets, to comfortably proceed past Jamie’s waistband. Jamie flinches at the relative chill of Dani’s touch, but parts her knees for her.

“—because anything you can give me—”

Dani watches Jamie close her eyes and exhale unsteadily. Feeble light and dramatic shadow wash over her, highlighting the creases of her nightclothes and the nuance of every reaction.

“—is yours, too.”

She’s surprised to find Jamie already aroused. The most probable influence was them discussing procreation. While a playful joke, its effect on Jamie is quite real and indicative of some weighty truth behind silly banter. Dani thinks it’s sweet of Jamie to think of her that way, even if it’s confined to fantasy. 

Jamie asserts, a bit strained, “Marriage is a partnership. I like to contribute.”

“You do.” Dani lays her spare hand on Jamie’s face and kisses her again. The caress is long and full and heady. “You give me romance.” Brief, tender kisses intersperse each statement. “You make me laugh. You make me feel good.”

Her fingers ply slow attention, knowing by heart and nothing short of muscle memory, precisely how and where. The hand on Jamie’s cheek slides to the back of her neck, holding their faces close. 

Dani continues, “You make me feel safe. You make me feel loved. You say things that... _change_ me, for the better. Maybe, all this time... I’ve been trying to catch up to what _you_ give _me_.”

One of Jamie’s hands curl around the sheets. The other grips the soft pant leg of Dani’s pajamas, trying to anchor herself.

“Let me give you things,” Dani whispers against her temple. The hand at the base of Jamie’s head smooths over her skin and threads fingers through her hair, wandering and restless with affection. “Don’t feel guilty about it, or like you have to repay me... Just take them. _Take_ —” When Dani fills her, Jamie quietly moans and cants her hips, eagerly accommodating. “—what I have to give.”

Being inside Jamie is always a treat - the _best_ treat. She’s so warm, welcoming, familiar. Dani never likes to leave her, even once she’s spent and sensitive, dripping ecstasy around her fingers. Arguably, that’s when Dani likes being inside her most, begging Jamie to let her bring her there all over again. 

“I love giving things to you,” says Dani, applying pressure from her palm in reward for every successive thrust. “I love how good it makes you feel. That’s all I need from you.”

In compliance, or appeasement, Jamie delicately clutches at her fingers. Jamie _loves_ this; being spoken to with such profuse affirmation and doting. Dani watches her the entire time, admiring her pretty eyelashes, parted lips, and the rosy red dashing her cheeks. Overall, she’s quiet tonight, save for the occasional whimper and hushed moan. It’s telling. Dani knows she’s thinking. Listening.

“And when you want things,” Dani says, “I want you to ask me for them. I’ll give them to you. If I can.”

The motion of her hand abates. Jamie reacts with an agitated sigh, hips seeking a lost rhythm. She may regret ever introducing Dani to such techniques, now that they’re frequently wielded against her. 

“Tell me when you want things,” Dani emphasizes in an intimate whisper against her jaw. “Tell me when you want it.” 

After angling her fingers in a way that makes Jamie gasp and whimper an octave above usual, Jamie says, breathless, “I-I want it.”

“Tell me when.”

A shaky little laugh departs Jamie. She’s too wound up to formulate any decent rebuttals in self-defense. Instead, Jamie concedes, “Right now. R-right there—”

Dani resumes touching her in earnest. Within several seconds, she has Jamie tipping her head back on the pillow, fluttering appreciatively around the fingers curled deep inside her to encourage a drawn-out, satisfying end. 

Jamie catches her breath, utters a quiet, “Fuck,” then adds at a more audible volume, “You... are getting really dangerous in bed. Since we married.”

She bites her lip through a pleased smile. “You like it?”

Jamie groans. “Please don’t make me answer that. You already know.”

They enter the Louvre the next morning and spend the entire day there, adrift in a sea of art. Jamie is, as per usual, critical. But she is only critical because she values sentiment and its execution so immensely. Those two aspects, Jamie believes, determine the whole worth of _anything_. 

Dani finds herself mired in a peculiar existential woe. Seeing numerous historical pieces, whose significance have been indoctrinated in her since grade school, is both overwhelming and underwhelming at once. Reverential weight, as she stands before the Mona Lisa or Venus de Milo, doesn’t register as it should. Conceptually, she comprehends the importance. But the plainness of physical objects eclipses their transcendental value. Dani expected some type of ethereal glow or radiance, only to face the mundanity of stone, canvas, and paint. It’s all beautiful and fascinating, certainly. But it’s no religion.

She didn’t encounter this detachment at Versailles or Notre-Dame yesterday. Today is a different day, she supposes. For some reason she feels different, too.

The exhibition Dani spends most time contemplating is a Caravaggio. Depicting of the death of Mary was apparently controversial at the time of composition, for confining a divine figure to a mortal vessel. Mourners surround the Virgin’s body, grieving her. Above their heads looms a blood-red curtain, heavy and oppressive, emerging from darkness.

That evening, they take a cab to Owen’s restaurant. It’s lovely. Perfect, even - offensive naming aside. Dani couldn’t be happier for him, and he couldn’t be happier for her and Jamie upon hearing news of their marriage. It’s been a wonderful day, and dinner is poised to follow suit.

Dani has no reason whatsoever to anticipate the plunge into quiet despair that occurs over the course of a few minutes.

She sees the Lady again in the metallic reflection of a water pitcher. Jamie detects her anxiety, but Dani is too rattled and busy processing the gravity of what she’s seen to even allude to anything being amiss. She’s able to dodge the concern, but finds herself confronting an entirely new source of distress moments later.

According to Owen, Miles and Flora have no recollection of what occurred at Bly. They barely remember Jamie and Hannah, while they don’t remember Dani at all. Every deed - good, ill, self-sacrificial - has been washed away by the erosion of time and mutable memory.

Far away from here, and from Bly, the kids are living happy, healthy lives. That is worthy of celebration. It’s exactly what Dani wanted for them. It’s why she chased after the Lady of the Lake with full knowledge of death’s likelihood. It’s why, in blind desperation, she invited that beast into her soul and damned herself to a dismal fate. It was all for them. 

But they don’t remember. 

At night, Dani withdraws. She broods in a chair on the balcony of their hotel room, peering out over the iron railing at tireless city traffic. A cigarette smolders between her lips, while another open bottle of champagne stands on the floor, near her foot. Under weak starlight she thinks, thinks, and thinks. 

Everything crashes into her at once. Fear of the Lady. Grief at being forgotten. Guilt for wanting recognition for a supposedly selfless act. While lowering her cigarette to the ashtray, Dani’s fingers shake. 

She hears the balcony door creak open. Jamie asks if she’s coming back inside soon; it’s nearly nine o’clock and summer hasn’t quite arrived. The nights are still cool enough to inconvenience those without sleeves. Dani retreats into the room, into bed.

While they were planning their honeymoon, they suggested that every night would be spent drinking and bedding each other like overeager newlyweds. With _abandon_ ; to no standards of moderation but their own whim. It felt like a promise, and Dani does not break promises. Not even for melancholy. She supposes - _hopes_ \- that having sex with Jamie will distract her, if only for the night.

Astride Jamie, knees bordering her hips, Dani sheds her blouse, unhooks her bra, and guides Jamie’s hands to her chest. The lustful admiration in Jamie’s eyes at seeing her bare, as if she hasn’t a thousand times before, is precisely the salve Dani seeks. But it’s no cure, nor even concealer. On the contrary, when held so close to the one who knows best the ebbing of her moods, intimacy only magnifies her inner turmoil. It takes no more than thirty seconds for Jamie to break the seal of their lips and peer at Dani, through the darkness, with worry.

“What’s wrong?” Dani asks. 

Cautiously, Jamie replies, “Was about to ask you the same thing.”

Dani glances away. The courage to speak escapes her. Fortunately, Jamie already knows.

“It’s about them forgetting, isn’t it?”

She’s correct. Mostly. Dani shifts her weight, dismounts her, and lies back to face a featureless ceiling. Jamie keeps a comforting hand on her waist.

At length, Dani shares, “I’m sad about it, even though it should be a good thing - that they don’t remember. So many bad things happened to them. They don’t deserve to carry around that pain. But if I’m still sad about it... doesn’t that make me selfish?”

By the end of her confession, Dani is fighting tears. 

“No,” Jamie tells her. “It doesn’t. It makes you human.”

Dani faces her. 

Jamie reasons, “You did something for them that changed your life forever. Wanting to be appreciated is nothing new, or special, or horrible. Society depends on it. We’re designed to want recognition. It’s natural. It’s instinct. You’re fighting instinct.”

“I wouldn’t take it back,” Dani, wanting that much to be incorruptibly established. “I wouldn’t. If I could... I’d do it again. Even knowing— Even without recognition. Even though it hurts.”

On an elbow wedged beneath herself, Jamie rises to a recline. She cups Dani’s cheek in the palm of her hand. “That’s all that matters,” she says, sounding brittle. “Remember, Dani. Remember, when I told you: feeling things doesn’t make you good or bad. It’s what you say, it’s what you _do_ , that matters. Feeling that way - sadness, dejection, knowing those gremlins don’t remember shite - is part of the sacrifice. _You_ hurt, so they don’t have to.”

Dani folds a hand over Jamie’s and shuts her eyes, adamantly willing herself not to cry. 

“And whenever it’s too much, whenever it’s too heavy... you hold onto me,” says Jamie, a compassionate voice in pitch darkness. She rearranges their hands to grasp Dani’s tightly in hers. “Okay? I’ve got you. No matter what, I’ve got you.”

At last, Dani opens her eyes and nods. Jamie kisses her head and strokes her hair, to its dim halo spilling over the red sateen pillow.


	12. Chapter 12

**xxii. (mercy)**

In secret, Dani starts keeping a notepad at the bottom of her sock drawer. On the top line is scrawled a date in early February. The next line reads the second of June. Dani draws a bracket in the margin, connecting the two dates, and annotates the gap: _4 months_. 

She dreads future entries. Mathematically, the more data points she accrues, the more accurately she can infer a rate of change. The next time she sees the Lady, Dani can start calculating how long she has left until the visions consume her reality; like monitoring a storm’s approach by the narrowing delay between lightning and crashing thunder. 

Jamie doesn’t know yet, because Dani doesn’t know how to tell her. They’ve only been married for a few months. How can she possibly warn Jamie that she might be widowed before their first anniversary? How can she break her heart like that during some of the happiest days of their lives? 

So Dani waits. She waits - fretfully, desperately - to establish a time frame. 

Summer comes and goes without incident. Dani mails a French-made purse she bought in Paris to her mother. She and Jamie rejuvenate their wanderlust and discuss buying a new car soon to enable it. They visit glassy lakes glittering in midday sun, take hikes through painterly washes of deciduous foliage, and picnic at their flourishing nursery every other Sunday. 

Dani’s thirty-sixth birthday is commemorated with a surprise lemon cake collectively bought by The Leafling’s employees. The remainder of August is a cruise through languid, balmy sunsets and scant clothing; shorts, hair ties, and camisoles minimally accessorized by cold drinks. Stephen leaves for trade school in September. As their first hire, his departure is emotional. Even Jamie, who once harbored myriad complaints about Stephen’s work ethic, is compelled to hug him. 

Two days before the beginning of autumn, Jamie runs a fever. It’s worse than her usual colds, which tend to consist of one day’s downtime followed by a steady recovery. This one confines her to bedrest for three days straight, barring her from work and happiness in general. She’s weak, can’t sleep soundly, and suffers a persistent headache - medicated to little effect. Most tragically, she’s become irritably tired of entertaining herself with books and television. She wants to go outside. 

During the day, Dani fixes the armchair and a blanket by the bedroom’s open window. The circuit of airflow completes through the kitchen, pleasantly filling the apartment with the dying last heat of summer. Jamie leans on the windowsill with her books, less discontented than before, but newly envious of trees, traffic, and the evolving sky prevailing in freedom.

On Jamie’s second evening of infirmity, Dani makes a chicken and vegetable soup. She sets up another chair in the bedroom and eats dinner with her, albeit at a distance Jamie deems safe. She won’t allow Dani to kiss her anywhere, not even the more innocuous locations. After Dani touches her for any reason - whether to check her temperature or help her through dizzy spells - Jamie demands she wash her hands. At night, Jamie wedges two pillows between their sides of the bed to barricade against any crossing over. 

While they eat, Dani asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Better than yesterday, thank fuck,” Jamie rasps. Her spoon clatters against the side of her bowl as she lowers it back into the broth. “I can stand without nearly collapsing now. Still dreaming weird shit, though.”

Around nine o’clock, Dani shuts the bedroom window, arranges Jamie’s pillows in a gentle recline, then tucks the sheets and a spare blanket over her chest. Dani attempts to kiss Jamie’s head, but she objects. In compromise, Dani kisses her own hand, applies it to Jamie’s cheek, and tells her she loves her. Although appreciative of the gesture, Jamie advises her, right on cue, “I love you, too. Now wash your hands.”

Soon after, Dani turns out the lights and settles into bed. Occasionally she hears Jamie clear her throat and restlessly shift, trying to achieve comfort. Within thirty minutes she quiets and calms. Dani, meanwhile, remains awake. On typical nights she doesn’t sleep until ten or eleven. She’s only decided to go to bed early, alongside Jamie, to avoid waking her later on. 

Alone with her thoughts, Dani contemplates how little she minds taking care of Jamie. Yesterday she was so woozy that Dani had to help her out of her pajamas, damp with fevered sweat, and into a lukewarm bath. She remembers Jamie’s perfect faith in her ability to safely lower and raise her from the water, and properly care for her in between. In her near-limp delirium, Jamie would’ve been virtually helpless to intervene had anything gone awry. Yet there she remained, compliant and trusting, in Dani’s arms. Completely at her mercy.

It was, unexpectedly, a moving experience. Something viscerally instinctual within Dani stirred, striking inconvenience as a concept from existence. Every thought converged on the single-minded, all-consuming need to hold and comfort Jamie through any complication or unpleasantness. A vessel of pure affection - she embodied nothing else.

Fulfilling this promised duty to her wife is one matter. To _feel_ its driving necessity thrum through her blood and bones, permeating every corner of her being, is another matter entirely.

Certainly Jamie has the capacity to feel the same way. And she may _need_ to, over a more arduous stretch, when time grows short and their best days are behind them. But how long can such a potent instinct burn? For how long can a lantern’s reserves light a path through the fog? Someday, when Dani finds herself succumbing to the Lady’s roily grip, will Jamie hold her to the bitter end, or will Dani prove too heavy a weight to bear?

A cold tear glides down from the corner of her eye and seeps into the shell of her ear. She wipes it away.

 _She will_ , thinks Dani. Of course Jamie will. Jamie would’ve never married her, never stayed with her all these years, never embarked on that first overseas flight with her, if she were not prepared to face the end at Dani’s side. 

Around eleven, Dani falls asleep. Twice she’s roused by Jamie coughing, only to slip right back under the veil of consciousness moments later. There’s wind tonight, the voice of changing seasons. Its turbulence bleeds into her slurring dreams and textures them, scatters them. Time twists and dissolves as hours pass, unfelt. 

She startles awake at the sound of a crash. Initially, she can’t discern whether the source is internal or external, dream or reality. So she stills, wide-eyed, and listens. 

There’s another clamor. A rattling, a thump. Somewhere in the apartment. 

Dani bolts upright, chest suddenly constricting with fear, and looks over at Jamie. She’s fast asleep, exhausted, and oblivious. With Jamie currently indisposed, there’s no other option. Dani slides out of bed and blindly fumbles a hand behind the bookshelf, seeking a handle. She finds it and withdraws a sturdy, steel-head claw hammer, dusty from disuse. Wielding it with purpose, Dani approaches the ajar bedroom door and cautiously pushes it open. 

Her heart pounds fast and hard. While traversing the shadowy hall on silent steps, Dani’s fingers tighten around the handle, knuckles going white. She’s terrified. Truly terrified. But the crisis at hand supersedes all hesitance, and Dani is quite aware of how deep her capabilities run in the effort of protection.

Another sound makes her jump. Scratching, scraping, along the kitchen floor. Before peering around the corner of the wall, she readies the hammer, and herself. 

She notices the kitchen window first. She forgot to close it before going to bed. The blinds, swaying in a capricious breeze, are a tangled, splintered mess.

Someone, or something, recently went through them.

New scratching draws Dani’s attention to the area surrounding the refrigerator. She circles the island to discover an unidentifiable mass writhing on the floor, horrid and alien in the darkness. Petrified of the unknown, Dani stares and frantically gropes for the light switch.

Once illuminated, the dubious mass becomes feathers and dirt, situated in a potted houseplant’s point of impact after being displaced from the top of the refrigerator. Dani realizes she’s being watched in return by a pair of large, frightened yellow eyes. 

It’s an owl. Brown plumage, dappled ash-gray, discloses a mangled wing and further trauma so severe Dani can hardly bear to look. 

Blood seeps from the bird’s head and beak. Its movements are erratic and uncoordinated, scattering debris across the floor. Evidently, after flying through the blinds the owl collided with the potted ivy and was crushed beneath the shattering weight of glazed clay. 

Dani lowers the hammer in pity. She extends a careful hand but retracts it when the owl panics, twisting and screeching in distress. Blood smears over the tile. A dislodged bone protrudes from its injured wing. 

She knows, by the gnawing in her heart, that it will not survive the night. It’s dying. Slowly and painfully. Powerlessness immobilizes Dani, until empathy overcomes dread and liberates her into action. 

With haste, she retreats to the bedroom and wakes Jamie with a hand nudging her shoulder. 

Jamie opens her eyes in a daze and mumbles, “What? What’s wrong?” Upon noticing the claw hammer in Dani’s grip, she’s thrust into high enough awareness to slur in alarm, “What d’you have that for?”

“You don’t have to get up, just—” Dani breathes, syllables away from shedding tears. “I don’t know what to do. Please, tell me what to do.”

She shakily rises after being informed of the situation, ignoring Dani’s protests. Jamie steadies herself on the nightstand and staggers along with Dani to the kitchen where the owl continues to flutter in anguish, blinking and clutching its talons in irregular twitches. 

“Can you get my gloves?” Jamie asks, leaning against the island. She nods at a specified location. “Drawer on the end.”

Dani fetches a pair of thick gardening gloves for Jamie, who tugs them on and kneels. Delicately, she examines the owl. It struggles and claws at her, forcing Jamie to pinch its feet together in one hand. She continues her analysis. As expected, the diagnosis is grim. 

“Think a cat got to it first,” she speculates. “It’s all shredded, right here. Really fucked up that wing. Then it comes barreling in here, panicked, smashing into everything...” Jamie shakes her head before coughing into the bend of her elbow, then turns to face Dani with contrition shimmering in her weary eyes. “It’s not going to make it.”

While Dani already suspected as much, Jamie’s concurrence devastates her all over again. She can’t stop gazing into that wild yellow stare, knowing only the struggle to live. 

She wonders if animals can conceive of death as humans do. Whether they too are cursed by knowledge of finality and obliteration of the self, to never exist again in the same form of consciousness. Does the owl, too, fear the sea of nothingness?

Jamie makes a hard decision. Speaking over her shoulder, she implores Dani, “Don’t look, okay? You don’t have to look.”

Dani clasps a despairing hand over her mouth and nods, facing the furniture in the front room. As soon as Jamie returns to the grisly task, Dani begins watching in secret. Jamie seizes the bird’s head in one gloved hand and its upper body in the other, before administering a sharp, twisting jerk to sever its cervical spine. Over seconds, the owl’s final spasms diminish. The lucidity in its eyes fades to flat vacancy, and it moves no more. 

They deposit the body in a wastebasket liner, planning to properly dispose of it in the morning. Jamie collapses back into bed while Dani cleans the mess. She sweeps up dirt and feathers, temporarily transplants the toppled ivy to a plastic bowl, and washes away the blood with a soapy sponge. By the time she finishes, it’s past three in the morning. Dani returns to bed incredibly empty. 

Sensing her sorrow, Jamie defies her own ordinance by extending a hand through the space between pillows in her barricade. When Dani takes hold of it, Jamie whispers, “It would’ve been dead by morning. It needed our mercy.”

Dani’s heart wrenches. “Was there really nothing we could’ve done?”

She hears Jamie sigh. “It had internal bleeding, and a head injury on top of that. It wasn’t moving right. I’m sorry, Dani.” After Dani stifles a sob, just audible enough to reach Jamie’s notice, she says, “When you garden, you’re fighting nature. Carving order from chaos. So, sometimes you have to kill vermin. Rodents and the such. I’ve killed my fair share, but I never let anything suffer. Remember my shotgun? It’s over quick. Much better way to go than traps or poison. We did the best thing we could.”

Jamie is right. It was the humane thing to do. Needless suffering is a cruelty, and they mustn’t ever be cruel. Still, Dani feels ill. Terribly ill. 

Throughout the night, Dani is haunted by those pleading yellow eyes. They follow her across waking moments and hazy dreams, their celestial wisdom fading into pale moonlight, and lost by the light of day. 

In the morning, Dani brings Jamie a peeled orange and two fried eggs. The plate is accompanied by a cup of hot water and a teabag, intentionally kept separate. Allowing Jamie to steep her tea to her own preference is an understanding gained embarrassingly late into their relationship. 

Jamie reports feeling much better today. When she sits upright to eat, Dani sees energy and clarity of balance behind every motion. 

Dani’s off to work soon. Along her short commute, she will see to the owl’s disposal.

She shuts the bedroom door behind her. In the front room, Dani changes out of her lavender sweater and into a black dress shirt discreetly borrowed from Jamie’s side of the closet. Minutes later, she transfers the bird to an old shoebox lined with newspaper. 

Her detour on the way to the shop is substantial. Dani drives in the opposite direction: south. She rolls down the windows a few inches and listens to the radio so quietly she cannot hear the station over whipping winds. When she reaches the nursery, Dani unlocks the shed to retrieve a shovel. Several acres sprawl between her and the yew tree. She crosses them alone, carrying the shovel in one hand and the shoebox tucked beneath her other arm. 

At a respectful distance from the yew, she digs a grave into undeveloped land. Dani underestimates the amount of work involved and only reaches two feet into the ground before she must lay down her shovel in fatigue. Following a fifteen minute recuperation, she buries the box and marks the mound with a pile of rocks. 

The funeral is bleak and silent. She has no words to extend. Only her company, kinship, and commiseration. 

A few days later, on the evening of Jamie’s return to the shop following her convalescence, she and Dani have a disagreement. 

Earlier Amy mentioned to Jamie, in passing, Dani’s three-hour tardiness on the day of the makeshift funeral. To Amy’s original inquiry, Dani had explained her absence as extra time spent taking care of Jamie. In truth, Dani left at an appropriate time that morning. Granted, she did have an errand to run, but three hours is excessive, and the lie makes it worse.

While Dani slices vegetables for dinner, Jamie approaches to ask where she’d been during all that unaccounted-for time, and what she was trying to accomplish or conceal by deceiving Amy. Dani takes abnormal offense. 

She says, “Do you really need to know where I am, or what I’m thinking, all the time? Maybe I just felt like being alone.”

Jamie blinks, surprised at her indignation. “Well excuse me for asking. You know I have to, right? Because you always make it so difficult for me to tell a non-issue apart from a serious one? Christ.”

Dani focuses on her cutting board. “If I had something to say, I’d say it.”

“Would you? Because I’m not so sure.” 

Her gaze lifts to meet Jamie’s, whose accusatory doubt is on unabashed display. Dani averts her eyes and doesn’t speak again for an hour. 

As they eat in uncomfortable silence, Dani secretly watches Jamie operate her fork and knife. She ponders how those lean hands belie the strength to take a life, however small, however necessary, and in the same grip, revive a wilted calathea or a routed ivy with borderline divine providence. There’s a tremendous power contained within Jamie that Dani hasn’t noticed before: a duality in the arbitration of both life and death. She almost resents it, now that she sees herself at its mercy, too. 

That same night, Dani sees the Lady’s undulant visage in the kitchen sink. In shock she drops and shatters a plate, and when she finally, _finally_ must reveal what dreadful visions have been plaguing her, there is no other refuge to turn to but the comfort of Jamie’s hands. 

Jamie embraces her, holds her head, and offers hope where there should be none.

**xxiii. (the abyss)**

They convene on the couch. The mood is grim and the light of morning is pallid and monochromatic. The notepad Dani keeps in her sock drawer lies on the coffee table, displaying her latest entry and its extrapolation: _3.5 months_. 

Jamie’s voice evolves from terrible silence. She asks, “Since February?” 

Dani nods. 

“And you’ve only seen her in reflections? Never as a manifestation? As if she were in the room with you?”

“Just reflections,” Dani confirms. 

“Okay.” Jamie thoughtfully wrings her hands. Her solution is disastrously simple. “Then we get rid of reflections, yeah?”

Defeated by futility, Dani shakes her head and sighs, “Jamie...”

“Seriously. If that’s how she’s stalking you, we cut off access. From now on, I’ll do the washing up myself. It’s only fair. I hardly cook anyway. And we’ll... we’ll keep the blinds and curtains drawn. We’ll put sheets over mirrors until we need them.”

Long ago, Dani relied upon identical strategies to keep a different phantom at bay. Those dark days were an abyss, a whirlpool of despair, dragging her deeper and deeper at every turn. To see herself regressing into that bottomless chasm is devastating, enervating. At this moment, Dani wants to crawl back into bed, shut her eyes, and pretend it’s all a nightmare. 

And she tries to, for days. Jamie abides her torpid depression for one, permitting Dani time for contemplation and processing. But when Dani starts sinking into a recurrent pattern, Jamie hauls her out of it. Literally. She pulls Dani from bed and heaves her along, sits her in sunlight and tries her damnedest to provide edible meals while Dani’s appetite wanes alongside her outlook. 

Dani can’t be certain of what ultimately fishes her out of the dregs. Jamie’s cooking is a strong contender. She can’t let them live under those conditions; it’s cruel and unusual. There’s also the matter of work. The others will start asking questions if she’s absent too long, and Dani doesn’t want anyone to worry. So she goes to work, stares at the ground when accessing glass doors, and permits regimen a chance to stabilize her. The smiles and laughter of her employees and customers alike, floating light and effervescent through luscious shelves of homegrown flowers and foliage, help her forget. Those hours are blissful. 

At home, Jamie removes every mirror in the apartment save for the bathroom’s. She hangs a white doily over the television, obscuring the blank screen while it’s not in use. Shiny metal dishware possessing enough surface area to portray a recognizable face retire to storage. In daylight, windows beam endless resplendence into their lives. At night, when most conducive to rebounding light emitted from within, they’re strictly blinded or curtained. Jamie scours each room multiple times before she’s confident in her proofing. 

While the world at large remains a minefield for unbidden reflections, their home _must_ remain a sanctuary at any cost. 

Normalcy is redefined as limitation of exposure. It’s truly astonishing, Dani thinks, how quickly they adapt to trying circumstances and incorporate new procedures into their way of life. The human spirit remains undeposed as the most fluid substance in existence, defined by sheer will to persist in the face of imminent cataclysm. They return the void’s stare with one of staunch defiance. 

Within a few weeks, Dani feels ordinary again. At least, as ordinary as she previously felt. Dates with Jamie to restaurants and movies resume. Countless nights are spent reading books to each other in bed. They pay bills, stroll through parks, and buy a new table lamp when one breaks beyond repair. Jamie goes to the library and returns with a bartending compendium, aspiring to diversify their drinking repertoire. Their next trip to the grocery store is entirely dedicated to acquiring ingredients for the amateur cosmopolitans, sidecars, and whiskey sours they mix at home, taste testing until they’re both tipsy and giggling like schoolgirls. 

In October, in the dead of night, the moonflower Jamie promised blooms on the windowsill. They lie tangled together in bed, observing the reaffirmation of a love that hasn’t wavered, lapsed, or diminished since its first declaration. It has only grown stronger, tempered by fidelity and utmost care.

All their wonderful years together reach from the annals of time and perpetuity to hold Dani. They are the shape and security of Jamie’s arms wrapped around her waist. They are the feathering of lips on her cheek and fingertips. They are the sincerity of Jamie’s intimate whisper against her head, “The best decision I _ever_ made was getting on that plane with you.” 

Amidst the push-and-pull of dread and hope, Jamie unearths an old artifact: _one day at a time._ It’s the mantra they once carried in their hearts like a prayer, back when nights seemed interminably long and days were short and precious, when every tomorrow was miraculous.

Those words saved them then, and they will save them now. 

**xxiv. (the road ahead)**

Around the end of November, they buy a new car. 

On that designated Friday morning, Jamie advises Dani to dress ambitiously. They’re feigning wealth today, enough wealth to captivate any salesman on the lot, even after noticing their matching wedding rings. And they _will_ notice, Jamie stresses. Any salesman worth his salt practices the art of thoroughly examining and observing customers with one goal in mind: the straightest path to their wallets.

The illusion of wealth beyond their reach will protect them from any unpleasantness. Also, pretending to be rich is a colossal degree of fun. 

Dani minds her advice. She pulls on a pair of nylon stockings, tucks her ochre-brown cashmere turtleneck into the belt of a black pencil skirt, and slips into heels. Gold jewelry follows. She layers a few thin necklaces of equivalent and convincing karat. Next comes her wristwatch, a pair of hoop earrings, and her best double-breasted coat the color of coffee with too much cream. Or, to Dani’s taste, just enough cream.

Today is too important to risk, so she asks Jamie to do her hair and makeup. Naturally, Jamie obliges. They sit together at the foot of their bed, in the window’s generous light, where Jamie parts her conditioned hair with a comb and brushes its cascade flat over her shoulders. 

Jamie mindfully imitates Dani’s preferences. She avoids bumping her ears and pinches upstream from tangles so Dani won’t feel her tugging through them. Once she’s satisfied, Jamie bids Dani to face her, cradles her jaw in a steadying hand, and begins applying her makeup. 

Jamie looks so nice. Whenever possible, Dani steals admiring glances of her collared dress shirt, unbuttoned once to grant sight of her herringbone chain suspended between pinstripes. The stones in her earrings - dainty, dangling - glow like amber in direct sun. At their proximity, Dani notices the scent of Jamie’s favorite perfume. The dusky fragrance instills within her heart the immutable sensation of coming home. 

When she catches Jamie fighting a reserved smile, Dani asks what amuses her. 

“Just looking at the lines you’re getting,” Jamie answers, “right here.” A thumb brushes over the side of Dani’s mouth. To clarify benign intent, Jamie leans in to softly kiss where she’s indicated. Before dabbing on her lipstick, Jamie kisses her there, too. 

“How do I look?” Dani asks. 

“Like a million quid. Dollars, bucks. Whatever.” Jamie caps the lipstick and slyly jokes, “You’re the perfect trophy wife for my rich expatriate persona.”

“Oh, no,” she argues. “You’re _my_ trophy wife. I’m the wealthy American heiress who found you on a vacation abroad, and I married you to spite my controlling father.”

Jamie snorts. “When d’you think all that up?”

“In the shower. Where else?”

“Well, since you put more effort into yours, I guess we’ll use that one.”

When they assemble at the front door, Dani keeps fussing with her hair. She sweeps a few fingers through her part and trusts it to naturally settle into place. 

Jamie touches her shoulders and assures her, “You look great. I promise, I wouldn’t let you down.”

Dani, who hasn’t seen herself all day, cannot so simply shed her unease. Jamie has an idea. She retreats into the bedroom, emerges a minute later with their instant camera, and snaps a photo of Dani standing at the door. She passes the developing photograph to her. Gradually, an image fades into view. There Dani stands within the frame, her mild confoundment immortalized while appearing precisely as Jamie contends: a paragon of mature gentility, simulated and actual.

Her hair looks fine. Jamie’s done a commendable job. 

A frigid overcast sky dulls the fantastic gleam of new vehicles filling the dealership lot, where the sharp-angled, boxy aesthetics of bygone times face extinction. They teeter on the cusp of a new era, a new millennium. Futurism approaches in a tidal wave of smooth, organic curvature, and Dani cannot wait to inhabit a construct of so much optimism. 

They haven’t yet exited the customer parking when a salesman in a brown tie and an oversized suit accosts and welcomes them. He wastes no time evaluating their needs and criteria in terms of mileage, reliability, and comfort. 

Admittedly, Dani hadn’t given it much prior thought. She just wants a car that looks nice and drives nice, set at a reasonable price. Jamie, on the other hand, has ulterior objectives today. She sneaks Dani a mischievous glance before telling the salesman, “Actually, we were thinking of taking a peek at the luxury models.”

Within minutes, Jamie has talked her way into one of the most expensive cars on the lot. She sits in the leather-upholstered driver’s seat, sweeping a hand over the sleek dashboard before gripping the wheel in reverence. Dani slides into the passenger’s seat. Simultaneously, they notice the car phone mounted in the center console and exchange a furtive, thrilled expression. The salesman’s earnest pitch is lost in the noise of their independent curiosity. The car has a deluxe CD and media player, unbelievable ergonomics, and powered windows. It’s the nicest car Dani’s ever had the pleasure of occupying. 

Jamie pushes their luck by asking if they can test drive it. Odds mount against them. Their current car remains in fair condition, but its age exceeds ten years; hardly the vehicle of people who can afford frequent upgrades. It’s a potentially fatal blemish on their facade. 

Today, fate rules in their favor. The salesman humors them. He brings a key, only for Jamie to pass it on to Dani. In surprise she nearly declines, but the opportunity is too singular for abstention.

What strikes her most is the incredibly smooth ride. Uneven roads glide beneath a soft suspension and the seamless action of an automatic transmission. Dani is exhilarated. The engine purrs beautiful and low as she circles the block around the dealership, passing under streetlights, banners, and gray amorphous skies in utter conspicuity. 

Jamie relaxes in the seat behind Dani’s, while the salesman is her passenger. He asks Jamie, “So have you been in the States long? How do you like it here?”

“Believe it or not,” she says, “I’m as much a Yank as you are now. Never thought I’d be, but here I am. I voted for the first time this month. In a presidential election, too.”

“Who’d you vote for?”

Dani knows, as much as Jamie must know, that he will flatter her with agreement no matter what Jamie says. She laughs when Jamie answers, “Oh, you know. The old guy.”

When they return to the lot, they loiter around and light cigarettes, enforcing an attitude toward time as a commodity in excess. The salesman continues interspersing relevant questions with personal ones, trying to win their trust by establishing himself as their friend. 

He says, “Quick question. Who exactly will be driving this car? One of you? Maybe you’re shopping for a Christmas gift for one of your husbands? Or maybe one of your teenagers is about to get their brand new driver’s license?”

Dani meets Jamie’s eyes, communicating mutual amusement and, less obviously, permission to speak recklessly. There’s not a shadow of trepidation in Jamie’s smirk. 

“We’re buying jointly,” Dani pleasantly responds. 

The information perplexes the salesman. He doesn’t know how to interpret and frame their relation for the purpose of utilizing it to his advantage. But when Jamie raises her cigarette in her left hand for a deliberately long pull, she draws attention to her ring - the very same one he certainly glimpsed upon Dani’s hand during the test drive.

His realization culminates in a terse, “Oh. Okay.”

He’s not a very good salesman, but he’s _their_ salesman. They’ll stop tormenting him soon, because Dani’s starting to feel bad about it. Although, she feels worse about never seizing the chance to tell her convoluted story about heiresses and trophy wives.

By the time they leave the dealership they’re in possession of an import known for reliability and longevity, upon trading a sizable initial down payment for an agreeable interest rate. It’s a silver four-door sedan - a base model well within their budget - but Dani’s in love. A single expression of favor seals their decision without contest. Jamie’s been so sweet and amenable all day, she might’ve let Dani have any car she wanted. She even concedes the privilege of the maiden voyage without a word, by taking Dani’s hand and decisively pressing the key into her palm. 

They split up between their two cars. Dani settles into the near-overwhelming aroma of new plastics and fabrics. With glee, she starts the car and follows Jamie out of the parking lot. They take to the road, heading to a diner for a late breakfast whether the vagaries of traffic allow them to stay tandem or not.

Dani needs no luxuries of extortionate vehicles to feel like the wealthiest woman in the world. 

Outside the window beyond their booth, the rolling overcast breaks. Beams of golden sunlight filter through, disintegrating any expectation of rain. They discuss selling the old car over eggs, bacon, and toast. The diner doesn’t carry tea, forcing Jamie to cozy up to a cup of black coffee. She firmly denies developing a taste for it, but Dani can’t be fooled. These days, Jamie embodies a picturesque American: an immigrant chasing a dream, building a novel life, marrying her foreign culture to a local one. The presence of bacon and cigarettes only reinforce the image. Dani tucks a hand beneath her chin while listening to Jamie comment on the rise of state and federal indoor smoking bans. The concern of a model citizen, Dani fondly thinks.

A few days before Christmas, during a spell of warmer weather that keeps the mercury gauge hovering a few crucial degrees above freezing, it rains. It’s an icy rain, biting them to the bone. At dawn, it batters away glazed frost formed overnight and reduces the treachery of the roads.

At four in the afternoon, Dani switches on her headlights and wiper blades before departing a movie theater’s parking lot. From the passenger’s side, Jamie rubs her hands together to generate warmth, tucks further into her scarf, and dials the heat low. The steady patter of rain insulates them from the world. Their post-movie discussion unfolds close and hushed.

“I’d love to drive on the beach like that,” says Dani, only half-joking. “We should try sometime.”

“Firstly,” says Jamie, “we’d probably get stopped and fined. Secondly, I’d kill you if you did that to our new car.”

Along with her attentive gaze, Dani aims a humored smile at the intersection’s streetlights beaming red through the deluge. She asks, “Would you give a Denny a marrow transplant if he needed one?”

Jamie scoffs. “Fat chance.” She briefly holds her hands over the air vents, stealing heat before it can circulate the car’s interior.

A green light impels them forward. Dani keeps her speed modest and respectful of inclement weather. The streets glisten with colorful reflected light, cutting through a dreary blue-gray wash. Electric signs of convenience stores and restaurants diffract in the transient prisms of droplets on the windows.

“Wonder what it’d be like,” says Jamie. “Having a sister. You know, one to be estranged from and all. And fight with, of course. Denny used to—” She raises an index finger to lightly scratch at her temple. “When we’d get into scraps, well, he was always bigger, so. Can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in bruises or plasters.”

Dani steals a quick glance in her direction. “Sorry.”

“What for?”

“You know. Bringing up Denny.”

“It’s okay. Movies about dysfunctional families always remind me of him anyway. But it was either that one, or the one about the witchcraft trials.” To Dani’s grimace, Jamie knowingly says, “Yeah. Didn’t think so.”

Neither speak over the next ten minutes. Dani listens to the fine ambience of her surroundings. She becomes keenly aware of the wipers’ constant beat over the windshield, the timed click of her turn signal as she queues in the leftmost lane, and the rich drumming of rain on the car, invigorated by occasional gusts. When Jamie moves to direct the air vents away from herself, Dani hears the chafing rustle of her jacket’s water-resistant material. It’s all so loud, once all is quiet. Her senses liquify into the moment.

Dani asks, “What do you want for dinner tonight? I didn’t plan anything. I got lazy. I mean, I could just see what we have at home and throw something together. Or we could get something.”

“Anything works for me,” says Jamie. “If you’re feeling lazy, I wouldn’t mind getting something.”

She says something more, but Dani doesn’t parse it. Her last statement seemed remote, muffled in the static of the downpour growing ever louder within her skull. Sounds of rushing water engulf her. Dani drives on in second-nature despite her peculiar displacement. She’s driven so long it’s as easy and automatic as walking. 

But when she changes lanes and spares her rearview mirror a monitoring glance, Dani catches sight of herself. Except, it isn’t herself at all. 

It’s _her._ Deliquesced, sullen, and transpired from the very vapor saturating the atmosphere. Dani fixates. Stares. Depth and presence of mind recede as she’s drawn into the reflection; into its hypnotic, abyssal horror. 

Almost too late, Jamie’s voice pierces her trance. 

“Dani. _Dani!_ ”

Thrust back into the present, Dani brakes hard. Wheels slip on water, grip, and carry them into the middle of an intersection’s crosswalk. There they stop in glare of streetlights, cycled red. The white wall of a freight truck rushes by, uncomfortably close. Its shuddering weight carves through puddles and sprays dirty street water over the hood of the car. 

Shock renders them speechless. Breathing quick and shallow, Dani looks back at the rearview mirror and only sees herself. She looks at Jamie next, beholds the fear shining in her eyes, and shatters at the severity of what nearly happened. 

At the soonest opportunity, Dani pulls off the road and into the parking lot of a corner liquor store. She visors her eyes with a hand and weeps while Jamie harshly admonishes herself, “I’m so fucking stupid. I should’ve realized. The mirrors. The fucking _mirrors_.”

She reserves gentler words for Dani. Jamie lays a hand behind her shoulders and tells her, “It’s okay. Dani, it’s okay. We’re okay. That’s all that matters.” She rubs her back, trying to console her. “Dani, it’s going to be okay. We’ll come up with something like we always do. We’ll work around it.”

Dani turns a reddened, incredulous gaze onto Jamie. She mournfully shakes her head, even as Jamie promises on a wavering voice, “I’ll take you anywhere you want, whenever you want. We can make this work.”

It’s when Dani realizes, the end of the world doesn’t occur in a single catastrophe. It occurs in pieces, in little bits of agency and freedom worn away over time until there’s nothing left but a bare frame to collapse in on itself, and quietly return to dust.

The notepad gains another entry: _3_ _months_.

When in transit, Dani can’t look up anymore. She won’t even risk looking over at Jamie while conversing with her, paranoid of a moment’s weakness that may send her eyes drifting to the mirrors. Instead, Dani routinely fixes her attention on the yellowed paperbacks she stows in the glovebox. Other times, Jamie spares her right hand for Dani to hold onto. It’s something else to look at: their fingers laced flush together, Jamie’s gently-pronounced knuckles, and her short, paintless nails. She memorizes faint scars, callouses, and lines in her palm. When Dani withdraws into passivity, Jamie rubs her ring’s face with the pad of her thumb, idly polishing the benevolent symbol that presides over their marriage. 

On a Sunday in January, Dani accompanies Jamie after a month away from the nursery to assess its welfare while hibernating in the frost. Heavy snow has snapped the branches of a few young trees, and two sprinkler heads have ruptured from the pressure of ice building within. The damage is minor. Thus far, winter has stayed its hand. 

They return to the car parked on the bank of the long empty road stretching through several miles of rurality. Jamie drives less than a mile before inexplicably pulling over. She ties one of her gloves around the stem of the rearview mirror to cover it, aims the side mirrors at the ground, and exits the car. Dani opens her door at Jamie’s request, regarding her with patent confusion until Jamie hands her the keys and says, “Take us halfway home. I’ll be your lookout.” 

For the first time in a month, Dani assumes the driver’s seat. Her fingertips graze the wheel, cherishing it. Perhaps Jamie expects her drive fast in celebration, but she doesn’t. Dani drives slow, savoring the time that remains and the euphoric control she retains throughout. She drives until the increasing presence of other motorists compels their responsibility. Jamie restores the positioning of the mirrors and they switch places again. But it won’t be the last time. Not yet.

Whenever they visit the nursery, Dani delivers them along that quiet road, temporarily nescient to all that pursues her.


	13. Chapter 13

**xxv. (monologue** or **the stage)**

They’re supposed to be somewhere else right now. Somewhere important. They made plans weeks ago and had every intention of honoring them. After all, the inherent value of a first anniversary is the uniqueness of it numerically never occurring again. 

They were due to leave at nine sharp that morning, and now they’re late twenty minutes by Dani’s best estimate. Although, she hasn’t been actively keeping track. She’s far too preoccupied to monitor any clocks. As far as she knows, they could be late by nearly an hour.

“Real quick.”

It’s remarkably stupid, how either of them would vest any faith in Jamie’s inciting offer. Of course it wouldn’t be _quick_. It’s never _quick_. In retrospect, maybe they never believed it at all, and simply didn’t care. 

Dani tightly grips the headboard in both hands, struggling to subdue a building urge to rock her hips against the sweet attention between her legs. Sounds of pleasure and frustration spill from her lips, drowned in the blare of a radio music station dialed loud enough to permit any expression her heart desires. The sheer insinuation in the look Jamie cast her upon adjusting the volume was an item of foreplay all its own. That, along with a minute of relevant and heated promises, already had Dani wet in the absence of touch.

Above her waist, Dani is an impeccably dressed example of graceful propriety, save for the deep blush staining her chest and face. Below her waist, she wears solely Jamie’s hands. Jamie has maintained her secure hold from the very start of this arrangement, from the moment she originally beckoned Dani’s straddle to shift up from her hips, to her middle, and higher still. 

“Come here,” Jamie had invited her, a soft smile playing on her lips at Dani’s gradual understanding. “More. Come _here_.”

Dani nervously replied, “I, um. Wow, okay. Are you sure?”

“Perfectly. But only if you want to.”

Clearly, she had wanted to. She presently kneels over Jamie, thighs bordering either side of her head as Jamie presses and parts and lavishes her with care. Dani frets at the strictness with which Jamie conducts them, antagonized and enraptured at once. Though Jamie’s hands wander on occasion, stroking along Dani’s waist and the small of her back to angle her, there isn't a single instant where Dani feels abandoned by the sense of being utterly and blissfully taken.

She can’t remember the last time Jamie had her so exposed and needy. She thinks she’ll die if she can’t start reactively moving her hips within the next minute. Dani begs her for it. She moans Jamie’s name and subtly fights her grip to communicate what she wants. For a short time, Jamie makes her wait; builds her desperation into something worthy of release. 

At last, Jamie graciously indulges her. While the rhythm she allows is closely guided and controlled for her own comfort, the modicum of cathartic friction is precisely what Dani needs. Her moans peak into little cries at a searing, velvety caress reaching into her, savoring every pulse of warmth coaxed from her like a due reward for patience. 

The headboard endures the attrition of fingernails curling into its wood as Dani hurtles over the edge. Even now, as she rides out the delicious shivers of satisfaction, Jamie isn’t finished with her yet. She only doubles her efforts, grips her hips hard and affixes her in place. But it’s too much, too soon. It’s become excruciating. Tiny, inarticulate pleas rise on Dani’s voice until she can force enough reason back into herself to whine between gasps, “Jamie... Jamie, _please_. S-stop. Jamie, _stop_.”

Jamie relents. “You okay?”

Breathless, Dani replies, “Yeah. I just— Oh God... I need a minute.” She shuts her eyes and retreats from the position. Jamie’s hands, previously a vise upon her, fall away at the slightest resistance and permit Dani to lie down and rest beside her. 

“That good, huh?”

One of Dani’s deep breaths becomes a weak laugh. “I guess you could say that.” She turns to look at Jamie, perceiving the vivid flush still burning in her face, the luscious shine of her lips, and her bare chest faintly streaked red by fingernails during a prior engagement. After a beat, Dani asks, “What time is it?”

A glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand informs Jamie’s report, “Couple minutes before ten.” She rises to lower the radio’s volume. 

Dani can’t say she expected better. The probability of leaving at all has become vanishingly small. But perhaps that’s what Jamie intended all along. 

Upon returning to bed, Jamie exposes her motive by coolly remarking, “Suppose it can’t be helped now.” With slight trepidation, she adds, “Do you... want to try that one thing again, in a bit? I could, uh, you know— I could wear it this time. I know you originally wanted to... give that a try.”

“Wow.” Dani peers at her with amused incredulity. “You _really_ don’t wanna go.”

Jamie fails to conceal her guilt in that regard. She inclines her chin once in a shallow nod. 

“I thought you were excited to go. It seemed like something you’d enjoy.”

“I don’t know,” Jamie sighs, turning her eyes at the ceiling. “I don’t think theater’s my thing. It’s a little obnoxious - the exaggerated drama of it all. Cut to the chase, you know?”

Dani furrows her brow. “Jamie, you spend about five percent of every day monologuing.”

Her shoulders shake with a soundless laugh as Jamie must, again, concede to the truth. “All right, that’s fair. Maybe I just like telling stories. Listening to them?” She shrugs. “Mixed results. Just hear me out: do I really want to spend my first wedding anniversary sitting in absolute silence for three straight hours, watching people in silly costumes try to make me feel things, or would I rather be spending quality time with the woman I love?”

“Quality time,” Dani repeats as a smile insists itself upon her lips. “Uh-huh. Okay.”

It’s fortunate they didn’t buy admission in advance, because those plans have sailed on without them. No longer beholden to time constraints, they slow down and savor a morning of _quality time_. At the end of the hour, they disband to tidy up and redress, reconvene in bed, and doze together through midday. 

Dani wraps her arms around Jamie’s waist to hold her and be held in return. She tucks her chin over Jamie’s shoulder and leans her head against hers, aching to be as close as possible. As Jamie’s hands wander her back in a soothing, aimless massage, Dani thinks she’s found heaven. She cannot conceive of a superior gratification than this instant. 

Her thoughts infinitely cycle one notion: _they made it._ It echoes through her, pacifying her troubled soul. They’re been married an entire year. A tumultuous, magnificent year; a testament to the insurmountable strength of their union and future resilience through any darkness that may descend upon them. 

When the bleary edges of a nap creep into Dani’s conscience, she recalls how their bed has held them over the last decade, nurturing every milestone of their relationship in its constancy. It remembers when they were young and their love was new and cautious. It remembers countless summer nights where their rejection of sheets never once betrayed its trust. And snowy, silent Christmas Eves with their legs entangled in collaborative generation of heat. Thousands of pages turned and witnessed within its comforts. Their wedding night. So much has happened on this little platform - an entire private universe of joy, despair, and pleasure. 

A zenith of affection fills Dani’s heart to the brim, inspiring her to kiss Jamie’s shoulder and request, “Tell me something better than an entire theater production.”

“All right,” Jamie says, rising to the challenge with a smile audible on her voice. While thinking, she reels in Dani to hold them even tighter together, so much that Dani’s breath escapes her in a surprised laugh. “My wife,” she begins, “is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever touched. Through endless gardens of roses and groves of cherry blossoms and shelves of temperamental orchids, perfectly tended; and all the fragrant bouquets and first buttery leaves of seedlings breaking through soil... Not a single one, or all of them put together, can ever compare. They’re jewels of the earth. But my wife is the _sun_.”

Jamie presses firm, warm kisses to Dani’s neck, each one dramatic to delight and amuse her. “And every day,” she whispers, “in my heart, I marry her again and again.”

**xxvi. (the fall)**

Jamie draws a ballpoint pen from her breast pocket and indicates several features of a crudely-sketched map. To Dani’s undivided attention, she explains, “So, there’s mirrors here—” She circles a point on the map. “Here. Here, and... here. And in the dressing rooms, of course, but we won’t be going in there.”

“You’re sure?” Dani asks. “That’s all the mirrors in the store?”

“I’m sure,” says Jamie. “I was _very_ thorough. I swear someone was following me after an hour, but I can’t say I’d necessarily fault them for that. If this were 1979... definitely would’ve been stuffing my pockets.”

“Okay.” Dani inhales steadily to collect herself. She holds her elbows and repeats, “Okay.”

“Yeah? You ready?” Jamie stores her pen in the glovebox and retrieves her key from ignition. The dashboard lights dim. 

“You’ll remind me, right? When we get near them?”

“I promise.” After folding the map to a portable fourth of its original size, Jamie hands it to Dani and they exit the car together. “Stay close, okay? It’ll be all right.”

Since spring, visions of the Lady have accelerated in frequency. This year’s catalogue of incidents began with February’s reflection in a frozen street puddle. Then came March’s sighting in a mug of tea, not long after their anniversary. Many followed. Incidentally, the timing of most, if not all, was perfectly anticipated by Dani’s predictive model. Now that blistering July is winding down, the situation has grown dire. It’s become a biweekly occurrence, and they’ve stopped recording them. 

As a result, Dani hasn’t gone shopping in months. She’s been too scared. Along with grocers, banks, and restaurants, retail in general has become a hostile environment to navigate with extreme caution. Not even work is safe anymore. The Leafling’s abundance of glass and polished metal plagues Dani with a sense of impending disaster from the moment she arrives to the moment she leaves. She’s reduced her working days to two or three a week, but by the weekend her mental exhaustion still befits working all five. 

Worst of all, the predictable nature of her sightings has led Dani to wonder if the Lady is subconsciously compelling her to seek out reflections whenever she wants to be seen. The notion never fails to send a chill of nausea rippling up her spine. 

Today only further substantiates that hypothesis. While browsing the outlet’s fall items, Dani spies an attractive sepia houndstooth skirt a few clothing racks over. She doesn’t even wear houndstooth. It’s too bleak. Nevertheless, she slips away to examine it without thinking to consult her guide. Jamie’s realization is belated. Her back is turned and she cannot warn her fast enough. By the time Jamie catches up to her, Dani is impassively gazing into a mirror mounted on a structural pillar, struggling to remember what side of the glass she exists on. 

Under such woes, 1997 smears into one long purgatorial season of adversity. The world Dani inhabits constricts to claustrophobic dimensions. Anxiety colors some days a sickly shade of misery, while apathy paints others a dull gray tedium. When Dani is at her very worst, reality itself seems thin and transparent, devoid of substance.

The slow certainty of it all spawns absolute terror. How long can Dani possibly hope to withstand such madness-inducing warfare? It will wear away her resolve. It will rob her of identity. It will stoke the chaos of self-doubt within her heart. And once Dani is thoroughly vulnerable in the throes of despair, she’ll become a prime host for taking.

But through the gloom, Jamie demonstrates the magnanimity and patience of a saint. She makes Dani laugh, chases the shadows away to make room for respite. She understands which nights are for lovemaking and which are for quiet comfort. She refocuses their recreation on nature, where reflections are scarce and the grass, sun, and sky on her skin makes Dani feel radiantly alive. She masterfully performs Dani’s hair and makeup on days when appearances matter, takes instant photos for her verification, and saves every one. 

Dani doesn’t know how Jamie manages to keep a level perspective, because this isn’t solely Dani’s struggle. It’s hers, too. Yet Jamie shows no wear, no hairline cracks in her faultless veneer. Every morning is a call to some higher duty she answers in stride, seeing no other option but to be exactly what Dani needs her to be. 

By the year’s end, Dani will realize that what lies under the surface is much more complicated. 

In September, when Bly’s lake begins to recurrently invade her dreams with its beckoning, tortured depths, Dani braves the outside world to make some important preparatory arrangements.

Around six o’clock, Dani hears the front door open. Jamie enters, retrieves a chilled water bottle from the fridge, and speaks about two prospective employees she interviewed today: a retired woman searching for something pleasant to occupy her days with, and a recent college graduate with a business major. Jamie heavily favors the former. 

From the couch, Dani acquires her attention. “Jamie? Come sit with me?”

Jamie hesitates at the overt severity of Dani’s tone, but has a seat to await her news. Taking hold of Jamie’s hand might’ve seemed a conciliatory gesture in Dani’s mind, but it only succeeds in worrying her more. 

“So,” Dani carefully starts, “I know that lately, a lot of what we’ve bought - like the land, and the car - is under both our names. Our spending and savings are joint, so those are fine too. But when you go further back, a lot is just under my name. Like the leases on the apartment and the shop. Also, when I was a teacher I had a retirement account. There’s not much in it since I didn’t teach too long, but it’s something. Anyway, today I went out and filed some paperwork. Just to be extra sure that you’d be my beneficiary for everything. So that, when it... happens... you won’t have to worry about losing anything else. You’ll be taken care of.”

“Okay,” says Jamie, hardly exceeding a whisper. Her jaw is stiff with suppressed emotion. 

“There’s something else, too.” Dani strains through her next statement. “If, in the future... you meet someone else to keep you company, I wouldn’t mind. I just—” Tears form in her eyes, but Dani refuses to let them fall. “I don’t like the idea of you being alone.”

Initially, she can’t interpret Jamie’s expression. It’s hard as stone and equally impenetrable. Then, something flickers to life.

“Okay,” Jamie repeats, markedly stiffer than before. She pulls away, rises from the couch, and moves to access the coat rack by the front door. 

In confusion, Dani asks, “Where are you going?”

“Stepping out,” she says while fitting her arms through the sleeves of a light jacket. Bitter dryness carries every word. “Going to try my luck, since you’re giving me permission and all. I know a few places I could go. I’ll be back whenever, yeah? Don’t wait up.”

It’s an act, obviously, to illustrate a point. But that doesn’t reduce its hurtfulness.

Dani wipes her hands over her face in exasperation. “God, Jamie,” she sighs. “I’m just trying to prepare for the future and you... You don’t even want to hear it! Why are you being so difficult about this?”

“Because you’re already writing us off!” Jamie exclaims, furiously tearful. “The future isn’t here yet and I’m tired of acting like it is! I don’t want to mourn you before you’re even gone!” She shrugs out of her jacket and rids of it with a careless toss. “And for the record: since the day I met you there was never anyone else, and there will never _be_ anyone else.”

Deeming her state unfit for further conversation, Jamie disappears into the hall and presumably the bedroom. A door slams, and Dani is left alone on the couch to process the first time she has truly witnessed Jamie buckle under the pressure of their predicament. 

The issue resurfaces again months later.

It starts in innocence. At the beginning of October, Jamie reconnects with a former literature classmate, Paul, who wanders into The Leafling in search of a date-worthy bouquet for a new girlfriend. He and Jamie recognize one another, exchange numbers, and promise to meet again to catch up. 

After dinner later that same week, Jamie declares, “Going out with some mates. Do you want to come along?”

Dani shakes her head. “No, I— I’d better not.”

“You sure?”

At her nod, Jamie copies a phone number onto a notepad. “I’ll be back by ten or so. If you need anything, for any reason, call this number and ask for me. It’s the pub. Bar. I’ll come straight home if you need me to. Safely, of course.”

She squeezes Dani’s hand, exchanges a kiss on the cheek with her, and disappears for hours. Dani buries herself in books all night and retires to bed early, but can’t sleep. She’s still awake when Jamie returns, half past eleven, clothes musty with cigarette smoke.

Identical outings span the next several weeks. It’s always the same activity, and always on Thursday evenings: Jamie goes out with former classmates. Dani doesn’t mind, because Jamie hasn’t given her any reason to. On the contrary, Jamie’s been quite open about who she’s spending time with. She volunteers their names, describes them, and recounts notable things they said or did. While Dani misses her when she’s gone, and worries whenever she’s late, she respects - even encourages - Jamie’s sociability. She doesn’t easily warm up to other people. To enable her now is a smart investment for the future. 

Although Jamie intends to refuse the company of future lovers, she doesn’t have to refuse the company of friends. 

Then something strange happens during the first week of November. Dani is rummaging through pockets before doing laundry - standard practice to preserve any misplaced items of importance - when she discovers a piece of folded notebook paper in a pair of Jamie’s jeans. She examines its contents to find several handwritten lines carried by billowing, romantic penmanship that is most definitely _not_ Jamie’s brisk, slanted scrawl. 

It’s an intimate love letter. Artful praise and innuendo flow through every sentence, some of which are marred by corrections, notes, and rearrangements that, once implemented, make the note even lovelier. 

Dani’s heart plummets. 

She knows she shouldn’t worry. She knows a harmless explanation awaits her, and there’s no danger whatsoever of the unthinkable. But her mind runs untethered like its own independent organism, wild and seditious, weaving new insecurities from a figment of source material. 

Not a month ago Jamie claimed, in no uncertain terms, that her faith would outlast their very lives. Yet what is the extent of temptation, Dani wonders, upon encountering other women who don’t have one foot in the grave, who aren’t incrementally becoming reclusive in fear of their own reflections, whose souls are entirely their own and not blighted by a corrupting malice? 

Jamie is _so_ attractive, clever, and diligent. She could have anyone she wanted. When Dani thinks of all the world’s gorgeous, kind, talented women full of limitless promise and life, she despairs. Maybe there was a time when she was comfortably counted among them, but now... Dani is a light of a different era beginning to fade. She can feel it happening. The lethargy bleeding into her professional life, dangerous spells of absentmindedness, this bottomless pitfall of doubt threatening the health of her marriage... all the nascent signs are manifest. 

But Dani has also _acquired_ something recently, something invaluable that she lacked before: wisdom. Experience has taught her that she must defeat doubt with reality before her imagination can wreak irreparable havoc. This situation is no exception. 

At the soonest opportunity, she confronts Jamie.

She finds her in the kitchen on a Saturday morning, withdrawing a handful of dry cereal to eat straight from the box. Without a word, Dani lifts the folded page for Jamie’s notice and gingerly places it on the countertop beside her. There’s no accusation, nor even insinuation, of any wrongdoing. It’s unwarranted. All Dani wants is to hear her speak, to be rescued from the narrative mangling her thoughts. 

Jamie suspends her snacking to stare and recognize the note despite extremely few identifiers. Quietly, she comments, “Was wondering where that got to.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” 

“Course. Paul’s girlfriend’s writing a novel. Or trying to, at least. She asked me to have a look at, well, a few racy bits. On account of - her words, not mine - another woman’s opinion being more useful than a man’s, regarding what women like. She wasn’t happy with some dialogue, so I agreed to provide feedback.”

Dani shuts her eyes, exhales, and wraps her fingers around the cold stone edge of the counter while leaning back against it. 

“You—” Jamie is shocked at her relief, but more so at what it implies. “You didn’t think that was...? That I was...?”

“No,” says Dani, sparing Jamie a fragile look. “Well, I— I knew you wouldn’t, but... I had to ask, you know? To be sure. For myself.”

“Dani.” Jamie covers her hand with her own and speaks austerely. “If I’ve _ever_ given you reason to believe, even for a moment, that I could do something like that to you... obviously, I’ve not been doing something right. I won’t go out anymore, okay? I’ll spend every night with you.”

The proposition bothers Dani. “Jamie, stop. Don’t say that. You should go. I want you to go. I’m just—” She shakes her head in shame as a familiar word hangs over their heads like an axe, invisible and menacing: _crazy_.

Jamie appears to grasp her meaning, but she has never used or validated that word in the past, and she won’t now. She strokes Dani’s hand and offers, “Come with me one night. Maybe it’ll help.”

“I can’t.”

“Just once?”

“ _Jamie_ ,” Dani says her name a bit too aggressively. Her tone softens, but remains grim. “I _can’t._ I don’t want to see her again.”

Understanding coalesces in Jamie’s face. She doesn’t press Dani further. Instead, she lifts her hand, kisses her knuckles, and lets her be. 

Dani spends next Thursday in a pensive daze. All evening long she reevaluates the idea of accompanying Jamie and whether the risks are worth a last-minute change of heart. She has a million chances to reroute the course she’s on. But in the end, Dani seizes none of them. Dinner keeps her on the edge of her seat with unvoiced reconsideration. Cleanup provides equivalent opportunities while Jamie is bound to the sink of dirty dishes. Less than an hour later, Jamie kisses her goodbye and silent solitude permeates the apartment. It seeps into every corner and recess, amplifies the infinitesimal hum of lights and appliances, and draws unnatural attention to the abrasive physicality of mundane objects, as if the mere act of existing hurts the space they occupy.

Accepting her limits - one of numerous convenient rationalizations - temporarily relieves her of regret. Its assuaging effect fades half an hour into the old movie Dani watches; tucked in bed with a cigarette and an ashtray precariously balanced on the rumpled duvet, and so spaced-out she hasn’t comprehended the last fifteen minutes of plot. Vital questions condense around her in a heavy, stubborn fog.

Is this what the rest of her life shall amount to? Waiting for death? Quivering before it in fear like some prey animal? Denying herself all semblance of joy in avoidance of pain? Is that really all that’s left?

And what if, this entire time, her sightings of the Lady haven’t been catalysts for deterioration, but symptoms of it? Perhaps they’re a window into her soul. A gauge, a litmus for the state of it. Just as one’s ignorance of a clock does not preclude or alter the passage of time, maybe Dani’s visions are academic, and she’s fleeing something that exists whether she sees it or not. 

If so, maybe the world can be hers again for a while longer. 

A profound desire for volition puts a phone in Dani’s hand. She dials the number Jamie provided. Not to contact her, but the bar itself to acquire its address. However, there’s a startling peculiarity. The man answering her call declares the name of the establishment along with his greeting, but it’s not a bar. It’s a bookstore. Dani assumes she misdialed, so she hangs up and tries again. The results are the same: a bookstore, not a bar. 

She doesn’t know what to think. Jamie must have originally copied down the wrong number. Or maybe she didn’t. Dani decides to discreetly investigate, “Do you happen to know a guy named Paul?”

The man replies, “Yeah, I know Paul. He’s reading tonight after closing. Which is in about... ten minutes. You got a message for him?”

“No, thank you,” says Dani. “But could you do me a favor? Can you give me the store’s address?”

The situation is thoroughly bizarre. As Dani pulls on her coat and a pair of gloves, Jamie’s lie starts to weigh heavily in her conscience. She has _never_ done that before, at least not to Dani’s recollection. Jamie is the sort to omit information or outright refuse access to it, whereas lying always seemed anathema to her. It’s worrying. Distressing, even. For if Jamie has resorted to lying, whatever she’s hiding must be of great concern. 

But there’s another important detail, one that Dani nearly misses: Jamie knowingly left behind a phone number that would expose her secret if ever used. Additionally, if Dani had agreed to come along tonight, a confession would’ve been inevitable at some point. Regardless of what Jamie is concealing, she’s deemed Dani’s wellbeing a superior priority every step of the way. While that doesn’t absolve her of deception, it spares Dani from thinking the worst. 

She takes a cab. After leaving it behind at the curb, Dani stuffs her hands into her pockets to insulate them from the freezing air and strides up the sidewalk toward her destination. She knows the area. It’s hardly a mile from The Leafling, near the outskirts of the commercial district. She keenly spots their car parked along the street with others concentrated in a small area.

There’s a light toward the back of the bookstore, warmly glowing. Dani raises a hand to knock on the glass, but jumps when she sees the monstrosity she fears most, matching and mocking her emitted curiosity. An outburst of resentment sends her hand slamming the center of her reflection. The impact rattles the door within its frame. Dani shuts her eyes, draws a composing breath, and knocks at a more appropriate vigor. 

Within a minute, a man wearing glasses approaches from inside the store to point at a sign in the window. It displays hours of operation. Dani insists upon conversation by motioning him closer. He opens the door a crack and says, “Sorry, we close at nine.”

“I know,” says Dani. “I uh, I called earlier? Was that you I talked to?”

“Yeah, I remember. You’re Paul’s friend?”

“Actually, I’m looking for Jamie. She’s here, right?”

He nods, lets Dani in, and leads her through shelves and display tables to the source of the light she saw earlier. When he asks if Dani needs a chair, she politely declines as a congregation comes into view. Two uneven rows of folding chairs huddle around a secluded alcove, seating eight people.

One man stands before them, reciting songs lyrics from a few sheets of paper stapled together. He fits the description Jamie provided of Paul: pierced ears, gelled black hair, and objectionable facial hair. Someone snorts, drawing Dani’s attention to a different man, and beside him, the source of the whisper that brought about his amusement. True to form, it’s Jamie. Paul appears annoyed at their jeering, but he resumes his reading undeterred. Dani hangs back to lurk in the shadows. 

When Paul finishes, he returns to his chair amid a limp applause. Jamie rises next and responds to a _boo_ with a rude gesture and a fleeting smirk. But once placed under her audience’s scrutiny, sheepishness infects every action. She restricts her focus to the lightly-abused manuscript clutched in her hands.

After keeping them in suspense, she prefaces, “So, uh. Apologies in advance, for this one. You see, I’ve been going through something pretty difficult lately and... my mind’s been all over the place. My spouse and I, we— we’ve been arguing a bit more than usual, and I know that shouldn’t be happening. I need to sort myself out, because from here on out... things are just going to get harder. And for this, I need to be more than I’ve ever been. So, tonight is venting.”

No one speaks. At their implicit encouragement, Jamie consults her script and begins, “Where is home, if not the family you were born into?” A meaningful pause highlights her thesis. “If not that moldy little terraced house in a row of ten, made of bricks as old as the war that wall you into their memory of violence? Your mum gives you the name of the person she wishes you were and fucks the men she wishes her husband was. Your father lives so deep underground that you won’t remember what he looked like, and all that’s left of him is a vague cloud of soot and a raised voice. One brother speaks in slurs and fists. The other needs you to become his mum when you’re only eight, because your real mum’s shacking up with some bloke who’ll end up giving her even more babies to neglect. So where is home now?”

Jamie turns a page. In the stiffness of her hands, and the dismal gleam of her eyes, Dani sees her ache from afar.

“Is it that hovel, lost in the rabble of other strange kids who steal everything you’ve preserved from your first life, so there’s nothing left of it but the scars on your skin? Is it the next place, a lovely house near a good city where you’re paraded around by a virtue signaling family who treats you like a prized show dog in the company of others, and a worthless mongrel when you’re alone? Is home—” Unexpectedly, Jamie’s voice hitches, but she perseveres. “Is home the nightmare where that wicked man insists you wear anything he’s bought you and makes you want to crawl out of your own skin, because it’s not yours anymore? Where is home, if not even in yourself? You look for it everywhere. It becomes compulsion. You smash car windows to steal purses and radios and anything that shines, because that’s what everyone taught you: destroy, take, and move on. You start fights you can’t win because the wounds are consequences of your own actions. They aren’t put there without cause anymore. _Finally_ , you think. A pain that makes sense. So you punish yourself. You look for trouble wherever you can find it, because the warranted predictability of it all is the closest to home you’ve ever been.”

Dani snivels in shared grief. The sound is hushed and small, yet all too loud within dead silence. Jamie’s eyes are drawn to the dark corner of a bookshelf Dani stands beside, half-obscured. When she sees her, surprise and woe in equal measure cross her features. She encounters immense difficulty while forming her next words. In the end, the hardship proves too much, and Jamie resigns from the spotlight by quietly saying, “I’m sorry, but... I can’t finish. I can’t,” and absconds so swiftly Dani cannot even attempt intercepting her. 

She follows Jamie out to where she stands at the edge of the sidewalk, peering at the street. When Dani arrives to stand beside her, she refrains from speaking. She doesn’t touch her either. Patiently, she waits for Jamie to come back to her from wherever she’s gone. Somewhere far away from here, in the distant past, or the future, where interminable melancholy fans out in all directions, extending from one tiny point of immunity: the present. 

Beyond them, and beyond the twisting, naked branches of trees lining the road, perches the moon. A familiar friend. Or a familiar foe, depending on who the night belongs to. Wispy clouds drift before its pale sliver, cold as the air stinging Dani’s face. 

“I didn’t know you were here,” Jamie tells her. 

Dani answers, “I didn’t know you were here, either.”

Jamie regards her dolefully. “I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry for lying to you. I didn’t want to say anything because it’s—” She expels a mirthless breath of laughter as she throws a glance back over her shoulder, aimed at the bookstore. “Because it’s so fucking stupid. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I know you need me at my best, and _God_ , I’m trying, but—”

“Jamie,” Dani gently stops her. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. It’s—”

“ _Jamie_ ,” she insists, extending a hand to her. When Jamie takes it, Dani grips her tight. “You know, I still need to be there for you, too,” she voices a realization, fresh in mind. “For as long as I can.” 

Her gloveless hand is like ice against her lips, when she kisses her. 

At home, Jamie explains how Paul’s best friend is the owner of the bookstore. The store’s culture attracts a certain crowd, many of them aspirant writers of some variety. The resulting circle of friends and acquaintances started meeting around a year ago in the interest of sharing projects or pieces to gain each other’s insight. Paul invited Jamie upon recalling her astringent classroom contributions. She nearly declined. But after giving it a fair chance, Jamie unexpectedly found herself in like-minded company. A few weeks in, she pitched something of her own. A scrap of cathartic nonsense, she thought, until it was well-received. Still, Jamie can’t shake the sense of being an outsider among them. She’s not a writer, not like they are. 

While listening, Dani massages warmth into Jamie’s hands. “Maybe you are,” she supposes. “When you want to be.”

She then asks whether Jamie intends to continue reading what she prepared at a future meeting. The question sends Jamie withdrawing into contemplation. At length, she gives her delicate response, “Think I’ll try. But if I’m being honest... I haven’t even finished the end yet. I’ve been too scared.”

Dani’s gaze falls to their hands, at home together, holding a like raft weathering storms of ruthless eternity. Softly, she says, “I’ll help you. We’ll make it a good one.”


	14. Chapter 14

**xxvii. (the wilting)**

Over months, Dani periodically accompanies Jamie to the bookstore on Thursday evenings. Hearing so many diverse voices of varying skill but equal heart enriches her days with mindfulness. She chats with the group and learns their names; laughs when they integrate her former teaching occupation into an ongoing joke. Given Dani’s abstention from reading anything of her own, they designate her the final judge of quality and consult her opinion wherever disputes arise. 

The joke reaches its consummate form when Dani risibly addresses them with the same bearing and diction as she would a group of ten-year-olds giving presentations.

Neither she nor Jamie concede a word about their marriage. Not in effort to conceal it, but for lack of necessity. It’s already obvious. Everyone realizes within a fortnight. And even if they hadn’t the rings to advertise it, the climate of intuitive closeness they express - independent of physical proximity - cannot be construed as anything _but_ marital. 

One week before Christmas, they finish Jamie’s project together. Jamie frames their sentiment, born from mutual contribution of love, in skillful phrase. She brings it to the bookstore and commences the latter half of her reading.

“Your first home,” she relays to their supportive silence, “is your own identity. You find it adrift, and it makes you understand: home isn’t a place. Home is solace. Home is peace. You’re a nomad at best, and a vagrant at worst. But now you know who you are. It’s a powerful anchor. And it’s a devastating one, when you’re weak. Because when you meet someone who isn’t unkind to you, you think that’s paradise. When she gives you fire and vengeance against a world that’s pillaged you of hope, you think that’s love. You get dizzy on poisons and dizzier on larceny. Then comes a day where everything goes wrong, and you think you’re being noble by taking the fall. You think it’s romance in its ultimate, selfless form. But she doesn’t look back. Not once, and never again. You’ve served your purpose.”

It’s nothing she hasn’t told Dani before. But hearing it this way, like woe given violent, near-palpable form through careful craftsmanship, Dani feels like she’s hearing it again for the first time. It’s just as raw, and just as wounding. 

Bluntly, Jamie continues, “Prison feels like a home. It’s true. There’s schedules, consistent meals, and psychiatry. You’re trapped and alone, but at least everything makes sense. You belong there. You really do, at that point in your life. For all the chaos and damage you’ve wrought... there’s value in repentance. You’re so low you can’t dig any deeper, so in epiphany, you start digging _out_. You’re given landscaping work. It keeps your hands dirty and your body tired, but when you finish, you see what you made. You made the world greener. _You_ did. _You_ , who only thought you could burn. It’s the first time you’ve felt a passion this true, and you know... this is it. It’s your purpose. Working, growing, nurturing things beyond yourself. The lush gardens you cultivate blossom, burgeon, and embrace you with the life and love you gave them. The garden is your home. You take it wherever you go, and it’s in everything you do.”

“Then you meet someone,” says Jamie, “out of the blue. Too pretty, bright, and brave for her own good. You feel like you already know her, because in her eyes you see the same heavy heart and extinguished hope you’re heaving around yourself. But you’re scared of being hurt again, and scared of hurting someone else. But somehow, you know you won’t. Because when it happens, it feels natural. It feels right. You understand. _She_ understands, in a way you feel in your very bones. It’s patience. It’s kindness and consideration. You reach out to each other, build a life together, grow a little older, and love each other more every day. She’s your home. She’s your garden. And you’re hers. You always will be. In every ounce of your grace is the love she gave you, resonating and saving you, proliferating into the world through you, until the end of your days.”

It’s a good ending, Dani thinks. It’s best anyone could ever hope for. 

The meetings adjourn for the holidays and resume mid-January, but they don’t attend again for weeks. Dani hasn’t been feeling well enough to go, and Jamie no longer wants to go without her. 

Describing her ailment is arduous. Dani best expresses it as a feeling of profound sickness, one that lays its festering roots deeper than flesh. A sickness of the soul. A thick sludge miring her inertia and sense of immediacy. She feels drawn-out, spread too thinly over too much space. 

As the calendar inexorably turns toward Valentine’s Day of 1998, the course of everyday life takes a turn for the worse.

Dani is in the storeroom at work, taking inventory when she notices the shards of a broken glass vase scattered over the floor near the base of a shelf. Her initial reaction is standard-issue exasperation. She fetches a broom and sees to the cleanup. But the pieces form a veritable array, a fractal swarm of reflected light bending to the face of its witness: the Lady. 

The sight ensnares her, impels her. Dani’s broom clatters to the floor when she kneels before the carnage to gaze into myriad visions of doom. It reels her in with whirlpool force, exerting a gravity of such cosmic proportion it distorts time. While Dani counts mere seconds spent captivated by the abyss, thirty minutes pass in the outside world, where her absence is noted. 

She’s finally roused by Amy, who had gone looking for her. Amy holds her shoulders, uttering in stark fear, “Oh, fuck. Oh, God. Dani, are you okay? Please say something. Oh, God... Did you hit your head?”

Dani’s vacant stare slowly regains presence. The color red registers first. There’s streaks of it on the floor and beading on glass fragments, sharp as blades. It’s on her hands, too. _Especially_ her hands, whose mindless wandering constitutes nothing less than a ritual of self-betrayal. 

Panic overwhelms her. She trembles as her lungs shut out air she fights to regain. Her own body becomes her enemy. Even her mind writhes like a gravely-wounded animal, bereft of reason, spinning out into turmoil. All Dani sees is red. Gruesome, seething red, until tears blur her vision and breed unnatural color where there was little or none.

When Amy announces she’s going to call for help, Dani manages to assemble enough words, and in the correct order, to plead, “Call Jamie. Please, call Jamie.”

But Jamie isn’t home. Today she’s preparing the nursery for spring and won’t be reachable for hours. The realization is devastating, as is Dani’s realization of dependency. Dani is hard-pressed to remember the last time she endured an episode without Jamie there to hold her through it, and she doesn’t know how she’ll survive this one without her. 

Limited by inexperience, Amy does what she can. She watches over Dani through the attack’s natural course. She opens the first-aid kit, helps clean and bandage Dani’s hands, and sits with her as the hours creep agonizingly by. 

Around five, Jamie arrives to help close up the shop and drive Dani home. She strides through the front door in denim overalls fastened over a thick winter flannel, declaring a flippant, “All right, you lot. Pack it in. That’s it for today.” 

Upon being received by their grim assembly, Jamie stalls with confoundment setting in her expression. No one has the heart to recount the day’s events. The sight of Dani’s hands serves that purpose alone. It plunges Jamie into a dread so cold she outright drops her work gloves noiselessly to the floor. 

Over the next hour, Jamie is virtually unreadable - willfully so. She’s steeling herself, becoming immovable as stone so Dani has something sturdy to hold onto. But the disquiet in her eyes breaches her every attempt to mask it, even as she inspects Dani’s wounds at home. 

“They’re not too deep,” she determines. “You won’t need stitches.”

Dani sits on the bathroom floor with Jamie, who has yet to allow herself a single moment of recuperation. She’s still dusty and grass-stained, smelling like bleak wind. Only her hands and forearms, from fingertips to elbow, have been scrubbed clean for Dani’s sake. 

While redressing the cuts in fresh bandaging, Jamie asks, “You don’t remember doing it?”

She shakes her head, growing pensive. Once Jamie finishes, retaining gentle custody of Dani’s hands within hers, Dani shares, “Jamie... I haven’t been that scared in... I can’t even...”

“I know,” Jamie softly answers. “I know. I should’ve been there for you.”

“You had no way of knowing.”

“Didn’t I?”

Dani meets her eyes. Neither speak. Not when the reality of the situation poses the loudest voice in the room. 

Their defiance, although noble, has its limits. Working is a luxury Dani has indulged in past the point of feasibility. What if a similar incident had occurred within the notice of customers? What if Dani had gravely injured herself, a few inches above the palm where her wrists lie vulnerable?

They’ve been operating reactively, waiting for disasters to force them into retreat. But it’s becoming all too apparent that a future disaster may _advance_ what they’re trying to delay, if severe enough. 

The death of Dani’s career begins in terms of _vacation_ and _leave of absence._ Days after the incident, Jamie comes home toting an armful of bouquets, Valentine’s Day-themed gifts, and a card signed by The Leafling’s staff bearing heartfelt messages beneath a commercially-printed _Get Well Soon_. The gesture moves Dani to tears for its compassion, and for its futility.

She asks Jamie, mournfully, “They know, right? That I’m not coming back?”

Jamie rubs her back and says nothing for a long time. “Sure you will,” she replies, audibly heartbroken in sympathy. “It’s _your_ shop. You’ve every right to peek in whenever you like.”

Dani indeed has that right. But she can’t bear to exercise it. 

To fill the vacuum Dani left behind, Jamie must work seven days a week - apportioned between the shop and the nursery - as their new wave of hirings process. During this period, exhaustion keeps Jamie dismal. Dani helps however she can. She makes Jamie’s favorites for dinner and prepares her lunches for the next day, warms her pajamas over the radiator while she showers at night, and massages her weary muscles until Jamie dozes off an hour or more before the usual time. 

Without work to temporally anchor her, Dani drifts through time. Weekends and weekdays meld into the same entity, and holidays grow sacred in their role as islands in a wide, featureless ocean. It’s nearly impossible to conserve the will to stay afloat when there’s no land in sight, and even harder without Jamie around to help her navigate absolute desolation. 

So Dani maintains the apartment as the warden of her own imprisonment, casually drinking and smoking throughout her days to an extent that won’t draw overt attention to their dwindling reserves, or remind Dani too much of her mother.

On the first Thursday of March, they go to the bookstore. Everyone is happy to see them again. When they ask where they’ve been, Jamie supplies an effacing, “Busy,” and shrugs. That satisfies them. Meanwhile, Dani stifles a burning desire to scream that she’s dying, that it _hurts_ , and she’s terrified of what she’ll lose next. 

Before disbanding for the night, they socialize. Jamie joins a small group engaged in debate over a poem. Nearby, still stationed among the folding chairs, Dani talks to Paul after he spontaneously sits down beside her. He’s a disaffected, surly man, but he affords her genuine concern by asking how they’re faring through the unnamed difficulty Jamie mentioned last year. 

A nervous smile twitches on Dani’s lips. “It’s been hard, but we’re managing.”

“Sorry if it’s too personal,” says Paul. “You just look... sad. I felt like I had to say something.”

“No, it’s okay. I appreciate it. The concern. Lately it’s been really demoralizing, I guess. We’ve been trying to figure out how to stay positive.”

Paul mulls something over, tapping an index finger along his stubbled jawline. “Do you ever feel like you need a distraction from it all?”

She sighs a fatalistic laugh. “Only all the time.”

“If I told you I had one, would you be interested?”

Dani inquires into his meaning, but Paul assures her it’d be better to explain with his proposition physically in hand. He leaves to get something from his car. Minutes later, Paul slumps back into his seat with both hands hidden in the pockets of his jacket. Paul removes one in the shape of a fist. Once uncurled, he reveals in the palm of his hand a small packet. The plastic is opaque to obscure its contents. 

She looks at him like he’s crazy. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says, shutting his hand again for discretion, “because you really don’t look the type. But believe me, on those days when your own body is working against you, this is medicine for the spirit. There’s nothing wrong with getting help from time to time. People drink caffeine to stay awake and take sedatives to help them sleep. This is no different, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Incredible doubt persists, but growing curiosity threatens to outpace it. Dani figures there’s no harm in asking, “Can you at least tell me what it is?”

He tells her, quite openly. It has many names, most of which were born from the college-aged youth who fuel the bulk of its economy. Throughout her own years in college, Dani never partook in recreations of that ilk, but neither was she oblivious to their existence and role at parties. She knows the boilerplate gist of it: a way of artificially coercing immense joy, albeit temporarily. 

It’s simple, Paul says. One at a time, and never back-to-back. Do it somewhere safe and enjoy with abandon.

When Paul opens his hand again, Dani accepts his offering. 

The next morning, while Jamie is at work, Dani unseals the packet and upturns it over a napkin on the coffee table. Three white tablets tumble out, so plain and unassuming they could easily be mistaken for mints. 

Dani hasn’t made her decision yet. She’s recalling all the times she’s been drunk, or ingested too much cough medicine as a child without parental guidance, or when she had her wisdom teeth removed as a teenager and the painkillers had her walking on air for hours. She’s wondering if this is so different, and whether such vices have any bearing on integrity or honor. 

A dark turn of thought inspires her final choice. 

She’s dying. How can anything but the pursuit of pleasure and comfort matter anymore? 

In the bedroom, Dani pops a tablet into her mouth and sips from a glass of water. At this stage, it’s as mundane as consuming aspirin. She tilts her head back, swallows, and lies down in an inert recline. 

For minutes, Dani stares at the ceiling with her hands folded neatly over her middle, feeling nothing. Nothing but the dreary static hum that outlines every thought, like a rainstorm that rolled in last year and never dissipated. Periodically, she checks the clock. Red digits count five, ten minutes without any sign of effect. 

She starts to worry. Did she do something wrong? Was she supposed to take more than one? No, Paul had clearly advised her not to. Perhaps she should get up and walk around to rouse her metabolic rate, or do something, _anything_ with her hands as they grow restless to move. 

Dani sits upright at a pull of lightheaded nausea swirling in her skull. Suddenly, she begins to fear she’s made a mistake in taking the plunge. Nothing feels right. Tense uneasiness courses her, thrums loudly in her blood and makes her flesh seem ill-fitting and foreign. Dani feels herself approaching a familiar precipice of panic and frets in dread of it. 

She fusses with her hands, sliding them over the polyester duvet. The material feels different, somehow. Smoother, almost silken, and intensely palliative. It’s a welcome distraction. Fascinated, Dani explores this unexpected delight by stroking the duvet repeatedly. Then, as quickly as her anxiety ignited, it extinguishes. 

The first wave of euphoria, when it hits, leaves Dani breathless. The second drives her to close her eyes as all vestige of distress is rinsed from her body, leaving purified light in its wake, clear and true. Impossibly, the waves persist in an unending parade, the ceaseless lapping of serene ocean foam upon her shore. They render Dani lax and formless, melting into the mattress.

It’s bliss. Dani writhes in it. She hugs a pillow to her chest as the recipient of her overflowing affection. She finds one of Jamie’s velvet dresses to covet and rub her cheek against. She swims in cool sunlight spilling through the bedroom window like a beacon toward salvation.

She’s felt comparably before, when standing at the summit of a mountain after a long hike years ago and absorbing the sheer majesty of nature. Or Jamie giving her the best sex of her life - a nonexclusive title awarded to several occasions within recollection. And _marrying_ Jamie, the most beautiful person she’s ever known. 

Unlike those moments, the compounds in her blood command an endless spring of pleasure without contextual cause. The sublimity amazes her. How can deterministic, unfeeling chemistry produce such a religious experience? Such existential completeness? 

There is nothing but this moment. Dani hasn’t need for _anything_ but this moment. The world is a kind, wonderful, perfect place. And she’s alive and flourishing within it. 

By the time Jamie comes home, Dani has long since returned to baseline. Yet a faint glow of elation still lives within her, inducing optimism and tranquility that shall endure for days. When Jamie notices her cheerful demeanor, she voices her observation, “You’re smiling a lot tonight. Did you have a nice day?”

“I did,” Dani brightly answers. She feels exactly as she did five or ten years ago. Free, happy, and looking forward to tomorrow. She nearly forgot what that was like. 

Jamie strokes her cheek with a thumb before kissing her there. “That’s good,” she says. “That’s really good.” She’s so patently glad for Dani, her eyes adopt a delicate sheen of moisture. 

Lost in her head-daze of mirth, Dani fails to grasp why that would make Jamie tearful. 

Fortuitously, the glow survives into their second wedding anniversary. Jamie brings home dinner from one of their favorite restaurants and they drink wine and watch movies all night. As they giggle into the small hours of the next day, holding each other while exchanging new and old vows through ardent whispers, Dani feels twenty-something again with a lifetime ahead of her.

But the darkness rolls back in soon enough, erasing all evidence of the sweet delirium occupying its rightful seat in her heart. 

Dani resists temptation for as long as she can. It’s no simple matter. She’s had a taste of escapism and remembers it with vivid longing. How can she bear to return to her previous mindset, wandering through fog without direction or purpose, when an easy solution calls to her from her favorite hiding place at the bottom of her sock drawer? A chance to be in full bloom again, basking in the gift of life and obliterating death as a concept?

After two days of melancholy, the precedent set at Dani’s prior dilemma wells up in her conscience: if she has to die, she might as well do it while cruising through a splendid dream. 

So she takes another and treads the same path as before. A twenty-minute lull of anticipation, a frisson of jumpy anxiety, and at last, the pinnacle. This time, Dani makes additional preparations by laying out the softest article she owns. It’s a faux-fur coat that caresses bare skin like a cloud. Given its pleasurable native properties, Dani expects it to embody an artifact of heaven once experienced through elevated perception.

She’s not disappointed. Dani spends hours draped in it alone from the waist up, listening to the radio emit the most remarkable music she’s ever heard. Unbridled hedonism sees her curled on the floor, arms wrapped around herself in worship of luscious faux-fur. She languidly rolls onto her side, onto her back. Musses her hair while tossing and turning on the throw rug. Grazes her naked chest against the wooden floor to feel its chill. Wherever whim suggests, she goes, sparing no concern for the absurd spectacle she’d be creating were anyone present to witness it. 

While this ride closely resembles the first throughout its climb and apex, Dani notices a deviation mere minutes into the decline. It’s as gradual as before, but she keeps sensing something just out of her field of vision. Errant shadows, detached from their sources. Everything’s a blur. The edges of objects are indistinct and variable, professing hues shifted away from their innate occurrence. 

The effect worsens. Lurking silhouettes pursue her, generating an atmosphere of paranoia and imminent danger. Dani _swears_ she sees someone in the corner of the bedroom. It startles her to her hands and knees, absolutely convinced she’s not alone despite all opposing evidence. 

Then she sees a horror. A form of startling physicality and detail, drenched in stale water. From the pale folds of a nightgown extends a wrathful hand. Shambling motions carry it forward, rippling through the holographic veil separating nightmare and reality. 

In utter terror, Dani flees the bedroom on a graceless crawl and scrambles down the hallway. The bare skin of her forearms and legs squeak frantically along the floorboards, while her fingernails scrape a path in equal distress. The shadow looms close behind, hunting her, though she dares not glance back to measure its gain upon her. When Dani hears actual, _genuine_ footsteps, her heart pounds with such tremendous mortal fright she’s certain it’ll burst. 

The instant she emerges into the front room with tears streaming down her cheeks, Dani hears a familiar voice emanating from the kitchen, “What in the bloody _hell_ —?”

Jamie is home early. Meanwhile, the horror is gone, as are the shadows; retreated from whence they came. 

Dani freezes where she lies prone and distraught on the floor, still wearing her coat and not much else, save for a pair of athletic shorts. Although her state is nigh inexplicable, Jamie will expect an earnest attempt. 

Roughly thirty minutes later, Jamie enters the bedroom with a mug. She passes it to Dani, who reclines fatigued in bed, drained of all energy. As Dani peers into the unrecognizable hot beverage, Jamie sits at the edge of the bed and orients her body to face her. 

“Drink it,” Jamie encourages her. “It’s bouillon.”

Indeed it is. The salty, savory flavor nonetheless perplexes Dani. She asks, “But why?”

“It’s not enough to just drink water. You’ll be needing a bit of everything else, too.”

Trusting her judgement, Dani has another sip. “You’re not gonna ask where I got it from?”

“No. Because I _know_ who you got it from. And he’d better enjoy his kneecaps now, because after this Thursday he won’t have them anymore.”

To her cold lethality, Dani responds, “Jamie, come on. He was just trying to help.”

“ _Help?_ That’s a laugh. I’ve been around this shite before and I know exactly what he was up to. Giving you a taste. Getting you hooked so you’d come back for more, this time for a price. And that twat _knew_ who you were to me, as much as everyone else did. I don’t think he could’ve been more clear in asking me to bash his fucking head in. And I’ll do it. I swear to God I’ll—”

“Stop,” Dani commands, when Jamie’s tone riles past an acceptable level of fury. “If you’re going to get like this around him, I don’t want you going this week. The last thing we need is you getting into a fight. I mean, you’ll be forty next year. _Forty_.”

Jamie interjects with grim sarcasm, “Thanks for reminding me.”

“You’re too old to be fighting.”

“Okay,” Jamie huffs in acquiescence. “I’ll give it some time.” She sighs, slowly and heavily, before refocusing their conversation onto Dani’s condition. “How do you feel? Physically? Mood-wise?”

Dani sets her mug aside. “Tired,” she replies, “and... kinda down. Like _really_ down.”

“Be prepared,” says Jamie. She picks up the packet on the nightstand for a cursory examination. “That might last a while. Could be days. A week, even. We’ll keep an eye on it.” Her spare hand locates Dani’s leg beneath the duvet and rests upon it. 

“You’re not mad at me?”

With a brief raise of her brow, Jamie dodges the question by posing another. “Were you planning on telling me?”

“I don’t know,” Dani sighs in confession. She withdraws into the downy cushion of her pillow, minimizing herself. “I was still figuring it out. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to keep doing it, and... I guess I assumed you wouldn’t like it anyway.”

Jamie says, a touch coldly, “You’re right. I don’t like it.” At Dani’s bland look, she elaborates, “Dani, you’re a grown woman who makes her own personal decisions, and far be it from me to tell you how to manage your grief. But as your wife, when I see that you’re about to hurt yourself, it’s my responsibility to not like it. These things—” She lifts the packet to illustrate, then tosses it back onto the nightstand. “—come with a cost. What goes up, must come down. And sometimes you come down hard.”

Attempting to soften the brutal sting of reality, Jamie leans in to kiss Dani’s forehead. Somehow, it doesn’t feel right. Dani doesn’t feel the expected warmth of reassurance spreading through her chest. All her joy and relief has combusted to fuel her surfeit of pleasure, leaving her numb. Numb to _Jamie_. It’s horrible. Odious, even. If this is due course for the crash, for the aftermath... Dani doesn’t want to be a passenger anymore.

When Jamie pulls back to gaze upon her, she’s pensive and sad. It hurts to be viewed with pity. Dani almost tells her to look elsewhere, but Jamie speaks first. 

“I need to make a decision,” says Jamie. “And after today, I think I need to make it now. But before I do, I want your permission. As my spouse, and as co-owner of the shop. Now that things are settling down at work, I’m thinking of promoting Amy to general manager and, well, stepping down myself.”

Dani stares in disbelief. She sits forward on the support of a million questions. 

Jamie purses her lips and nods. “I thought it about for a while. Over weeks. I kept wishing, every day, that I could just call it quits and come home. To be with you and spend time with you. To make sure you’re okay. As it turns out, you’re not. I want to do this because I’m realizing that every moment spent elsewhere could’ve been spent... enjoying what we’ve still got.”

Silence envelops their mutual stare. Dani doesn’t know what to say. Certainly, she misses Jamie and needs her more than she’s ready to admit, but letting go of The Leafling is too drastic, too sudden. While they’d remain its founders, owners, and final executors of finance and management, to take a remote role in the shop’s prosperity is unimaginable. 

But when Jamie says, solemn with honesty, “I don’t want to regret anything,” Dani knows there’s no other option. 

At Dani’s consent, Jamie releases her hold on The Leafling to entrust that beloved, verdant garden of a decade to the care of others. With her hands free, she now desperately clutches Dani in both; a wilting centerpiece of the bouquet they’ve kept alive and beautiful for so long. 

**xxviii. (landscape at dusk)**

One Sunday afternoon, Dani sits facing the recessed window, laminated in autumnal daylight. The white sheet pinned around her shoulders projects stolen radiance through reflective potential. Jamie stands behind her, combing her hair into a flat golden curtain before lifting a pair of scissors. Dani feels Jamie pinching a section of hair between her fingers to apply the two-inch trim she’s requested. A snip of the scissors releases the meager tension. Jamie moves on, leveling another section against the first. 

“We should take a walk,” offers Jamie. “Could go to the park in a bit. Today’s warmer than it’s been all week.”

Dani doesn’t reply.

A minute later Jamie speaks again, her voice gentle with absence. “When I first met you, I remember spending an _obscene_ amount of time staring at your hair. Don’t think you ever noticed, but... whenever you were looking away, chances are I was looking. Later on, when you first let me pull it, you know, the way you like... it felt like committing a sin. Like roughing up something angelic.”

At last, Dani responds. “How’d you reconcile that?”

“I thought: if this is a sin, I suppose I’ll be first in hell.”

That makes Dani smile. Every such expression is a battle against the colossal sorrow weighing her lips, but Jamie has always known how to turn the tide in their favor. Sometimes Dani thinks Jamie could move a mountain, if the shadow it cast robbed them of daylight.

The last few months have resembled their first together. Those delicate, uncertain days immediately after Bly, when they wandered free of all commitments except for that to each other. Granted, they still oversee The Leafling’s operation, and Jamie must guide the hands tending the nursery a few days a week, but she’s usually home before lunch and the remainder of the day is theirs alone. 

Frugality has reasserted itself as a staple lifestyle policy. They’re paying more in employee wages than ever before, but their finances have stabilized after some necessary budgeting. Expenditures on nonessential clothing and dining out have seen the most substantial reduction. And yet, even with their pocketbook under mild duress, Jamie seems overall happier with her renewed dedication. 

But there’s an emptiness within Dani that can’t be filled by another’s passion, no matter the scope or depth. It is a void wrought by trivial existence, the sense of occupying space while contributing nothing of worth to it, tangible or not. She can’t work. She rarely goes out. And she can barely even housekeep without encountering difficulties exacerbated by her condition.

Dani begins to see herself as nothing but a helpless doll for Jamie to dress, entertain, and comfort until her time comes. 

On a night when Dani can’t sleep, and Jamie stays up with her to attend silence together, Dani upturns her gaze at the dark ceiling and thinks woefully aloud, “Who am I going to be, at the end? Will it even be me anymore?”

“It’ll always be you,” Jamie whispers. “As long as you’re here, it’s not the end.”

Dani continues, oblivious to Jamie’s comment, “I don’t do anything for anyone. Not anymore. I think... I think I’d rather go as someone I’m proud of. I’d want you to remember me like how I was when I was good to you. I don’t want to overwrite any of that with... what I’m becoming now.”

Her skirting of ideation frightens Jamie. More importantly, it spurs her into action.

The very next day, Jamie returns from running errands with a stack of hobbyist magazines. Dani is not initially receptive. While listlessly thumbing through them at Jamie’s insistence, she can’t shed enough cynicism to see how any diversion could resuscitate her quality of life. 

Birdwatching. Music theory. Chess. Astronomy. There’s one about cooking, too. Dani points it out, telling Jamie she ought to benefit from the opportunity. Jamie takes minimal offense. She’s pleased at Dani making light of the situation, however briefly. 

They start with chess. Jamie buys a board and they learn, or relearn, the rules as they stumble through a practice game. Their first matches unfold evenly, with no clear victor until the board grows sparse. Over days, Dani demystifies chess by learning a few effective openers alongside the nature of the game: planning, predicting, and adapting within an environment of disciplined logic. It’s the final nail in the coffin for Jamie, who knows only defeat from that point onward. 

Tragedy lies in Jamie’s genuine effort. Dani observes her calculating her next move with her hands folded in front of her mouth, brow stern in concentration, only to make another fatal error. Upon losing for the third time in a row that day, Jamie remarks, “How’re you doing that? You’re really fucking good at this.”

She’s really, objectively _not_. Jamie is just very _bad_ , but Dani won’t say so aloud. 

Once chess loses its sheen of newness, Dani peels open the astronomy magazine and studies names, relative positions, and seasonal visibility of constellations. She learns star and planetary classes. The material is far more robust than the elementary-level knowledge she was once tasked with imparting. Much lies outside her grasp.

The best thing to come of it is a night where she and Jamie bundle up in warm layers and drive out to the nursery, where the city’s light pollution wanes. They share a pair of binoculars as they gaze up at the sky, humbled by the pale smudge of Andromeda wheeling through the void at its unfathomable distance. In that same instant Dani feels as significant as the universe in its entirety, merely for witnessing and partaking in it. 

The cooking guide started as joke, but it doesn’t stay one. While Dani has gladly fed them for over ten years, her unique misfortune will bring about an end to that era, potentially within months. She wants to leave Jamie everything she possibly can. Financial security, a wealth of memories, and the will to continue living mindfully without her. It’d be nice to leave Jamie another gift, this one of self-reliance in the kitchen.

Dani starts small. She teaches Jamie how to properly fry an egg, eliminating a presumed dichotomy of _done_ and _not done_. They ruin half a dozen eggs before Jamie gets it right. When she does, a world of culinary possibility opens its doors to a new pupil. Following much trial and error, eggs become complete breakfasts. They persevere into dinners, which begin as collaborative efforts until Dani oversees Jamie’s execution less and less. After a month of training, there arrives a miraculous night where Jamie prepares a moderately complex pasta dish without a word of guidance, and they don’t wince at all while eating it.

Hidden away at the bottom of the magazine stack is an item Dani originally dismissed without much thought: an issue of an embroidery periodical. She spends a morning reading it cover-to-cover, charmed by delicately stitched flowers and illustration-like compositions. The medium impresses her. It seems so deliberate, exacting, and meditative.

Jamie passes her in the armchair on several occasions while going about her business, each time commenting some cheerful variation of, “Riveting stuff? Must be getting good.”

Around lunchtime, Jamie sets a plated sandwich on the end table beside Dani, who thanks her, and immediately transitions into a request.

“Next time you’re out,” says Dani, “can you do me a favor? I want to try this. I’ll make a list of what I need.”

Jamie retrieves a notepad and pen from the end table’s drawer and hands them to Dani. “Make your list,” she tells her. “I’ll go right now.”

“ _Jamie_.” Dani shakes her head, amused by her amenability, but hesitant to take advantage of it. She emphasizes, “Next time you’re out.”

Jamie kneels before the chair to tuck her chin on the hands she’s folded over the armrest. “Make your list, or I’ll just guess and buy whatever the store clerks tell me to.”

Successfully persuaded, Dani clicks her pen and writes down the essentials. After tearing out the page and handing it over, Jamie kisses the palm of her hand and says, “Anything for you, baby.” Beaming a contagious smile, she rises to leave. 

Within the hour, Jamie returns from a fabric and craft store. On the coffee table she lays out a few wooden hoops, a set of needles, and a dozen skeins of colored thread. She’s also bought a booklet of patterns and stitch techniques. 

While Dani makes heads or tails of the supplies in preparation to start basics, Jamie vividly reports on the fabric store to share the experience in what little ways she can. The displays, in accordance with the season, were decked in cozy autumnal palettes of reds, oranges, and browns. Fake leaves, pumpkins, and wicker lined the shelves through which clientele meandered. All of whom, says Jamie, happened to be older women. Except for one bored-looking teenager dragged along by his mother. 

Dani’s first depiction is a simple, jittery arrangement of red and orange floss in the shape of a sycamore leaf. It’s only a test. She means to disassemble it to reuse the thread, but Jamie won’t let her. 

“From here on,” says Jamie, “you’ll only get better. And you’ll never make something like this again.”

“Something this bad, you mean,” Dani infers. 

Jamie provides an alternate perspective. “Something this bold,” she decides, “for having the audacity to try at all.”

Every evening, after dinner, she practices. Whether twilight finds Dani in the armchair, at the kitchen island, or in bed huddled up with Jamie, passively listening to the chatter of the television, she remains inseparable from her projects. Determination or fixation - it matters not. Through her hands, Dani memorializes the flowers she’s left behind in the lovely antiquity of her life. She dreams of them. Misses them. Channels them. Her embroidery is a tiny prayer, a feeble hope that immortal meadows lie beyond the end of time, and not the empty oblivion she’s learned to expect. 

From where Dani lounges in bed, contained within Jamie’s arm tucked around her waist, she asks a question without looking away from her methodical stitching. “Where would you want to go, after you die?”

A steady breath indicates Jamie’s serious contemplation. “Definitely wouldn’t want to be preserved,” she answers, misinterpreting Dani’s meaning. “Always found that too macabre. Unnatural. Think I’d rather be fed to a tree somewhere. Or... I’d like to go wherever you are.”

Dani’s hands still. No, she thinks. She would not want Jamie to go where she’ll be. Jamie is destined for the meadows she’s learning to stitch, not the depths of the undying curse Dani has been condemned to. 

That night, within a lavishly dense wreath of pale pink and white flowers, Dani embroiders Jamie’s name in the most exquisite cursive she can perform. 

Throughout the remainder of autumn, Dani completes numerous pieces, each more skillful than the last. Jamie asks her to embroider something into the chest of her favorite jumper. Into its creamy cotton, Dani adds a minimalist desert scene, using a postcard as reference. Purple mountains shelter an orange sun over a field of cacti, staunch in their sentinel poise. The sky is a dusky gradient of pink and violet, serene, never fearing the night. 

In secret, she leaves tiny roses and sunflowers above the ankles of Jamie’s socks. When Jamie discovers these additions, she says nothing, but wears them far more often than her other pairs. 

At home, Dani’s creations find residence on their bedroom wall, near their framed degrees. Others go to decorate The Leafling among fellow floral splendor. None are for sale despite customer interest and inquiry. The exhibition is a love letter which, even through the waning months of Dani’s life, continues to fill their community with radiance.

Eventually, Dani creates something for her mother, and for Judy. Three miniature bouquets sprout within the rings of each hoop, composed of flowers that remind Dani of them most. For her mother, she depicts pink carnations, day lilies, and daisies. For Judy, she bestows bluebells, white camellias, and snapdragons. Dani considers mailing them without a hint of forewarning. But while finalizing her gifts, Dani recognizes the importance of calling her mother to indeed warn her. Of a gift in the mail, and of her daughter’s approaching demise. 

“You’re sick?” Karen repeats. “With what?”

Dani fidgets with the phone cord, wrapping its coil around her wrist in loops. “They don’t know,” she lies. “But I can’t work anymore. It’s too exhausting. Jamie’s been taking care of me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her, or... how much worse it might’ve been, without her.”

“Well can’t you transfer to a better doctor, or something? How can they not know?”

She squeezes her eyes shut and lies again. “They’re trying to rule out a few possibilities right now. It might take time. Until then, I’ve been keeping busy. I’m going to send you something soon, so you can see for yourself.”

“Dani, you can’t drop something like this on me and change the subject. You’ll keep me posted, right?”

“I will.”

At night, Dani finds the bathroom door ajar. Light leaks from within. She knocks, hears no response, knocks again, and enters. Jamie lounges in the bathtub, juggling a cigarette, her flip lighter, and a newspaper above the water. She’s engrossed with a particular column, muttering, “What in the world is going on...?” until the moment of Dani’s entry.

Jamie sits upright to say, “Hey, hey, whoa! I’ve got the mirror uncovered.” She indicates a white sheet folded on the floor, near the sink’s base.

The advisory doesn’t faze her. Dani pays the mirror no mind along her short journey to the bathtub. She sits down on the plush bath mat and holds her knees to her chest. 

“I called my mom,” says Dani.

“Really?”

“Yeah. To tell her that I’m... sick.”

Following a minute of silence, Jamie lays down the newspaper on the floor, drops her lighter atop it with a muffled thud, and reaches out to thread her fingers through Dani’s hair. “I’ve been working on something,” Jamie murmurs. “For the bookstore. But I don’t think I want to give this one to them. I think it should only be for us.”

Dani hums. “Do you remember how it goes?”

“I’ve revised it so many times,” says Jamie, “I’ve committed it to memory.” In hushed tones, she recites, “When you’ve been given one day to live, and all your wonderful sunlit hours are spent, and the darkness of night is unfurling like a shroud, what do you do? You look up. You look up and fall asleep to starlight.”

Some time later, Jamie enters the bedroom wearing a dark burgundy bathrobe and heads for the dresser. From the middle drawer she retrieves her winter pajamas and moves to disrobe, when Dani interrupts by sliding her arms around her from behind. She covers Jamie’s hands with her own, tenderly kisses the side of her neck, and asks, “Can I do it?”

“Do what?”

“Can I dress you?”

Jamie turns in her arms to receive the kiss Dani cranes to offer. “Of course,” she answers.

Dani has her lie back on the bed. She unties the robe’s belt, kneels to slide Jamie’s pants up her legs, and guides her arms through the sleeves of her nightshirt. Dani fastens each nacreous button slowly over the skin she leaves rosy and sensitive, well-kissed along the center of her stomach and chest.

It’s not the sex they’re accustomed to. It’s something infinitely more reposeful, with the purpose of soothing, rather than rousing. She drinks Jamie’s sighs into her mouth while touching her to the pace of natural breathing on the cusp of sleep. Jamie’s thighs warmly hug the hand sunken below her waistband, welcoming the billowing love Dani stands to give in reflection of what Jamie gives her every day of their hardship: the tireless work of uplifting a life worth living and cherishing until its final hours.

When Jamie moans, she sounds soft and relieved, not agitated in want of something already provided. Dani makes the rise itself one elongated fulfillment, sailing them quietly, peacefully, into the night.


	15. Chapter 15

**xxix. (when night is stolen)**

The sleepwalking starts as an isolated event in December of 1998. During the languid week interluding Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Dani wakes one morning on the couch with no recollection of the events that led her there. Without a blanket, her face and hands are near-numb from the ambient winter chill. It’s highly perplexing, that the discomfort never roused her. 

Later on, Jamie brews tea to accompany their breakfast. While handing Dani’s to her, she cautiously inquires, “Did I say something?”

No, Dani reassures her. Jamie has done nothing wrong. Dani supposes she made a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night and never quite made it back to the bedroom. The incident is unusual, but not concerning. Stranger things have been said or done while under the influence of sleep that holds too tightly through waking moments. 

Moreover, Dani has larger, more painful battles to contend with. Materiality now hides behind an impenetrable haze. Experiences are muddied, indistinct; slipping through her grasp as if she were an incorporeal shadow of another dimension, unable to interact with this one. Activities as simple as choosing an outfit must be actively tuned into, like dialing a radio through endless static in search of clear signals. Otherwise, Dani is apt to derealize daily movements to nihilistic twitches in the void with no intrinsic value or consequence. Such instances are brushes with death. 

Around the beginning of spring, the sleepwalking happens again. 

Dani stirs at the sound of water. She’s in the kitchen, running the sink faucet down the drain. Disoriented, Dani shuts off the water and glances about the darkness for an indication of motive. A single anomaly catches her attention: the soap dispenser is on the floor, oozing blue. She puts it back in its usual position and returns to bed, where Jamie is conscious and awaiting her. 

“I’m sorry,” Dani whispers, peeling back the covers before slipping beneath them. “Did I wake you?”

Jamie replies, “Well, you weren’t exactly quiet. Heard the door, heard the water, and I think you might’ve dropped something.”

She gazes up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I... I don’t know what I was doing.”

“You okay? You’re really... spacey.”

Dani doesn’t say anything. She feels like she’s still wading through a shallow dream, caught in wispy reeds of amnesia. Immediacy has fissured, unfocusing her body into two halves where one acts, and the other follows at a considerable lag. 

Jamie reaches out to touch her arm. “Dani, can you look at me?”

After processing the request, she meets Jamie’s unsettled gaze. Jamie never elucidates what she’s looking for, whether she finds it, or if she wants to find it. But Dani maintains a chilling suspicion that it involves verifying _whose_ eyes are peering back at her. 

One night in May, Dani’s nocturnal machinations detour from cold, watery depths and thrust her into unworldly heat. She’s traveling down a forested road engulfed in fire, listening to thousands of ravaged trees splinter and scream in perdition. Embers swirl in vicious flurries and sap the air of all memory of moisture, while interminable walls of flame singe the heavens. Never before this moment has Dani ever yearned for the company of the lake. 

She escapes her nightmare with a jolt, having been shaken from it. It takes Dani a few seconds to recognize the long hallway leading to neighboring apartments. Jamie has, thankfully, caught up before she wandered too far. While she’s pale with fear, Dani is too dazed to register the danger. The gravity of the situation doesn’t sink in for hours.

In the morning, Dani chews on the scrambled eggs and toast with strawberry preserves Jamie prepared. Unnatural silence extends through breakfast. When they finish eating, Dani busses the dishes and utensils to the sink for Jamie to wash. As soon as she returns to her seat at the island, Jamie says, “We have to do something about it. You could’ve been hurt.”

Curiously, the prospect doesn’t frighten Dani much. Her sense of self-preservation has never hovered at such a low tide and she doesn’t know what to make of it. While picking at the hem of her placemat, Dani grimly proposes, “We could tie me to the bed.”

“No.” Jamie shakes her head. “That’s too barbaric.”

“Well what about when we used to—”

She interrupts, “That was for fun. This isn’t.”

 _Used to._ It’s an interesting choice of phrase, but not an inaccurate one. That, along with several other items of unconventionality in the bedroom, have been more or less retired for reasons unknown. Maybe they’ve gotten old and boring. Or maybe it’s a byproduct of Dani’s condition. 

Over time, it’s become increasingly difficult to engage intense emotion. Pleasure, in its receding potency, is starting to abstract into vague ephemera. It flares like a lit match and then it’s gone, forgotten. Extinguished by the inclement downpour consuming her days. 

Come to think of it, they haven’t had sex in two weeks. Dani hasn’t been able to sustain the right mindset for it. Lately, her appetite has been limited to embracing Jamie in bed until the moment of sleep, and little else. Now that Dani is sleepwalking, perhaps she’s too scared to do anything _but_ hold onto Jamie for as long as she can every night, never knowing which may be her last. 

She’ll have to make a conscious effort to instigate something the very _instant_ her mood lightens. As soon as the clouds part, she thinks. 

After more deliberation, they come up with a countermeasure. Jamie takes down a box of Christmas decor from a closet shelf, rummages through wreaths and string lights, and produces a sleigh bell. At night she ties it around the bedroom doorknob with a ribbon. By religiously keeping the door shut, any attempt to exit the room will trigger the improvised alarm and awaken Jamie in time to intervene. 

It’s an effective strategy. The next time it happens, Dani wakes to Jamie gently prying her fingers from the doorknob. While escorting her back to bed, Jamie placates her delirium with a whispered, “Come on. It’s okay. Come on back. Everything’s fine.”

In June, balmy evenings open the windows to pleasant fresh air, crickets in hopeful concert, and the low murmur of the city. Dani sits in the armchair embroidering a landscape. It’s a rather long-term and ambitious project, as her developing skills allow, of a national park in the west she and Jamie once vacationed to. With memory as her sole guide, she delineates shafts of golden sunlight pouring into an evergreen glade, where two deer stand at the bank of a creek. 

Embroidery has become a refuge. Her scenes and landscapes feel like the world does: approximate and impressionist. They provide her with a sense of control over environment and fate, as if the fabric suspended within her hoop were a universe of its own, and her needle, the hand of a provident and present god.

She requires a pale tan thread for the deer’s satiny hides, but can’t find it among her supplies. Figuring she left it in her nightstand drawer, along with other spare skeins, Dani heads to the bedroom in search of it. 

The door is ajar an inch. It silently opens at a nudge; Jamie has yet to tie on the bell for the night. When Dani enters, she sees Jamie already in bed at eight o’clock, lying prone with her eyes shut, but the lamp is on and she isn’t asleep. Realization strikes when Dani notices a flush of color in Jamie’s face, the labored breaths she expels, and the sheet subtly pitching as a result of motion from beneath.

Dani means to retreat, but a clumsy hand swiveling the doorknob generates a sound. It startles Jamie, who immediately stops to hiss a curse and reconfigure her hands. 

“Sorry,” Dani says, discomposed. “I didn’t know you were— Did... Did you want privacy?” She starts to leave. 

“It’s fine. I was just—” Jamie trails off, evidently thinking it silly to explain. “I thought you were, uh. Busy.”

From the doorway, Dani says, “I was going to look for something. Real quick.”

A nod invites her in. Dani approaches the nightstand to find her thread. After successfully doing so and shutting the drawer, however, she lingers at the junction of two choices. She could step out without another word, allowing them to resume their respective activities under a self-induced illusion that an interruption never occurred. Or, she could confront the issue. 

Dani chooses to place her thread on the nightstand’s surface and sit down at the edge of the bed. There she lays a hand on Jamie’s back, affectionately stroking her through the thin sheet. When Jamie doesn’t decline her company, Dani breaks silence to say, “When was the last time we made love?”

Jamie sighs and begins to reply in concession, “Dani—”

“I haven’t been taking care of you.”

“Okay,” says Jamie. “Don’t say it like that. I know you haven’t been feeling up to it. And that’s okay. It’s okay. The moment you _do_ feel like it, let me know, and I’ll drop everything, yeah? But until then, it’s okay. I don’t want you to feel pressured.”

“ _Jamie_. How long has it been?” Dani wishes she knew herself. Time is an amorphous mass, heavy and enigmatic.

At her austerity, Jamie’s hand emerges from the bedsheets to clutch Dani’s. Her skin is hot and her fingers are slick from abandoning one need to tend another. The gesture, in its raw vulnerability and truth, mirrors the sentiment Jamie offers next. “Every day,” she says. “Every minute, of every hour that I’ve spent with you, you have made love to me.”

Tears sting Dani’s eyes when she realizes Jamie won’t be telling her. But maybe it’s wise of her, ultimately, to avoid dwelling on remorse. 

Jamie says, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay? We’ll figure something out.”

She pivots to lean over Jamie and brush her knuckles against her cheek. “You know I love you, right? And that’s not the problem?”

“I know,” Jamie answers, audibly fragile. She draws her arms around Dani’s waist, who rests in an embrace upon her. After holding her for all of five minutes, Jamie whispers, “Whatever happens, whatever works out or doesn’t... Please, Dani. Please don’t think this problem makes our relationship any lesser than it’s ever been.”

Dani nods into her neck and kisses her there.

Jamie keeps her promise. The next day, she and Dani loiter in bed for hours to converse in honest terms. Dani’s failing libido, as they understand it, involves a lack of inciting urge. But whether she’s still capable of seeing the act through - provided there _was_ an urge - is presently unknown. Jamie emphasizes the need for patience and introspection. She suggests setting aside time for private self-exploration, so that Dani may gauge her scope of response while removed from external scrutiny or pressure to perform. 

She despises how clinical they’re making it sound. It’s the _correct_ approach, she knows, undoubtedly informed by Jamie’s experience with psychiatry, but ever since Dani met Jamie she has perceived sex as some gossamer, undefinable rapture that turns the heart inside out through poetry, not science. 

The next time Jamie is out checking on their business, Dani lies in bed with the waistband of her underwear drawn taut around her wrist. For minutes her hand has rested upon herself as a limp reminder of the task she’s reluctant to undertake, primarily in fear of failure. She can’t decide which outcome is worse: not knowing whether she has the potential, or knowing she does not. 

Two hours remain before Jamie is due home. It’s a generous opportunity, provided she can seize it. 

After much delay, Dani closes her eyes and recalls - and imagines, as needed - a tapestry of provocative scenarios. Its fringes are mild and benign. She evokes Jamie’s fingertips gliding up the curves of her waist. Her deft, disciplined hands igniting want everywhere they touch. A wet kiss pressed to the back of her neck, sending shivers radiating throughout her body from that modest point of origin. 

It’s not enough, so she searches deeper. Turns her mind’s eye to delights she won’t voice her admiration for without monumental incentive. Dani fondly remembers the neat slope of Jamie’s lower back, from the belt loops of her jeans to her pockets. The way denim creases at her groin in riveting invitation. How Dani would demand eye contact while unbuttoning them and sliding her hands within. She thinks about Jamie’s hand fisted in her hair, tugging insistently enough to bare her throat. She thinks about how overwhelming it was, at first, to feel that full and not resent it like she feared she would. How every firm buck of Jamie’s hips would make her fluster and blush harder, and elevate her affirming moans to heights of desperate need. She thinks about that night, conjuring Jamie’s voice and likely encouragements.

 _Come on, baby_ , she’d say. _Let me take you there. Tell me what you need._

But she doesn’t know what she needs. She once had everything she needed: an open heart and an open body that obeyed the behest of its resident, that felt the world fondly and wholly. Something is missing now, something that cannot be regained, as surely as coal can never return to its original form. A dead space is growing within Dani, annihilating anything unfortunate enough to slump into its chasm, including the emotional and instinctual faculties necessary to cross certain thresholds of sensuality. Presence of body, as it were, is departing her. 

That evening, she tells Jamie of her failure. Naturally, Jamie holds fast to hope. She’ll try again. _They’ll_ try again, together. But Dani has grown weary of hope - that Sisyphean toil where ground is lost on every climb, and the acceptance of defeat at the mountain’s base becomes all the more enticing in its promise of repose. 

Hours later, Dani stirs to Jamie’s concerned hand on her shoulder. She’s standing before the bedroom window, where twisting veins of rainwater course its surface. 

Jamie escorts her back to bed. Waking to Dani’s motionless, shadowy outline nearly gave her a heart attack. It’s a transgression outside her control, but Dani still affords a word of apology.

The night has been stolen from them, and she can’t imagine how they’ll ever reclaim it. 

She feels defective. Incomplete. Broken. Yet Jamie holds her close, grazing her ear with a soft, “I love you,” like gauze for a mortal wound.

 _That_ , Dani feels. _That_ , she will always feel. Loving Jamie is not a force confined by flesh. It lives within her very existence, down to the last mote of memory. 

There comes a peculiar night in July, where Dani wakes to a circumstantial reversal. Jamie is absent from bed. Dim light bleeds in from the space beneath the door, originating elsewhere in the apartment. Dani rises, envelops the sleigh bell in her hand to mute its ring, and exits the bedroom. 

She finds Jamie on the couch with a photo album in her lap, opened to their first Christmas in Vermont. When Jamie notices her, she seems to assess whether she’s awake, and upon determining that she is, says, “Dani? You all right?”

Dani nods. “What about you?”

“I’m okay.” Jamie fidgets with the corner of an album page, quite distinctly not okay. 

After sitting down beside her, Dani wraps her arms around one of Jamie’s and leans her head on her shoulder. She views the album with her. There’s a photo of Dani holding a cup of coffee, red-nosed and red-eared after very recently sheltering from the flurries outside their cozy lodge room. A shy smile plays on Dani’s lips, partially obscured by her raised mug.

“Christ,” Jamie utters. “Look at your hair.”

Dani inspects her blonde, voluminous waves spilling ostentatiously over her shoulders. It’s been so long since she last wore her hair in that style, Dani almost thinks she’s looking at another person. The next photo is of Jamie with a cigarette between her lips. She’s leaning down from her seat in a chair to lace her boots, preparing to disembark into another day in the snow-blanketed village. 

They look so young. Absurdly young. There’s a sweetness in their faces that’s faded with time and maturity, so gradually Dani had never noticed. Nostalgia smolders in her heart as Jamie flips through more pages, guiding them through the next year. She slows down at the sight of their current apartment on the day they moved in. In one photograph, Jamie has splayed herself comically on the bedroom’s bare floor. In another, Dani stands approximately in the same spot they occupy now, arms outstretched in humorous presentation of glorious, unfurnished space. 

She remembers that day, even now. How the emptiness of their home yearned for them, how every vacant corner and wall ached to be fulfilled by the vibrant lives of its occupants. The space was as young as they were. New, open, eager. Ready for the greatest adventure of their lives.

Dani profoundly wishes she could go back and live it all over again. Every moment, painful or beautiful, was perfect. It was perfect because it was theirs. Their perfect little life carved into the immense fabric of time, precious and fleeting. 

When the night deepens, Dani turns to Jamie. She runs a wistful hand up her back, to her neck, and asks, “Can we try something?”

And Jamie, true to her word, drops everything to return to bed with her.

It’s that night, where lovemaking is redefined to accommodate their needs.

Jamie kisses her. Weaves her fingers into her hair and kisses the column of her neck, sparing each side equal, profuse attention. She moves to her shoulders, running her lips along her collarbones before caressing the dip between them. She kisses her chest and the skin over her heart. Her legs, knees, ankles. Everywhere, softly loved. 

As Jamie’s lips trail her arm, to her wrist and fingertips, Dani feels her wet against her thigh. But she isn’t left behind. She is the recipient of Jamie’s reverence and worship, the greatest thing in existence, the entire purpose and soul of the night, and their bed. Dani feathers her fingertips over her lips. A slight pressure seeks the warmth of her mouth, which Jamie readily gives, along with the rest of her; all that she is and will ever be. 

Without this, they have asked, what remains of their marriage? The night now answers in utter deference: _everything_. 

**xxx. (echo)**

They welcome the new millennium in the place where their adventure began: New York. The trip was incepted by Dani, which came as a surprise to Jamie _and_ herself. Cities, especially New York, are fraught with dangers where Dani’s condition is concerned. At this point, the likelihood of an incident approaches near-certainty. But Dani is adamant. And Jamie is, as always, prepared to face any good or ill at her side, come what may. 

New Year’s Eve is spent retracing their steps. They’ve reserved a room at the hotel they first stayed at together and dine at the same restaurant. They bring the bell with them, just in case. And Dani sees the Lady everywhere she goes. She pursues her through windows, decorative mirrors hung throughout the hotel, and bodies of still water. Three times a day, Dani counts. It’s astonishing, how much her integrity of self-perception has deteriorated outside her awareness. Their reflection-proof apartment afforded Dani that peace of mind, but it was only ever conciliatory. An analgesic for the inevitable. 

While navigating the busy grid of city streets and public transportation, Jamie links their arms together. No matter the distraction, Jamie keeps them moving. Keeps them safe. 

A moment of true respite is found in Central Park. They seek out the spot they once lounged in together, watching the sunset. While the country’s eyes fix upon Times Square, Dani and Jamie remain in the park, huddled in their wool coats, hands filling each other’s pockets in commemoration of nearly thirteen years of unwavering companionship and devotion. 

When midnight strikes, they are already in their hotel room bed, lulled to sleep in their clothes by plentiful champagne. The noise rouses Dani. Celebratory shouting, illegal fireworks, among other clamor. Jamie still dozes in her arms. Dani gently shakes her awake and points to the glowing alarm clock. Gracelessly, Jamie kisses the corner of her mouth, mumbles something unintelligible, and drifts back to sleep with her face buried in Dani’s neck. Dani rubs her back, trying to absorb the significance of the moment. 

The new millennium, as something of novel consequence, seems reproachably feeble, artificial, and unreal. The world roars in glee of it, thrumming in unison like a single organism of humanity. It’s supposed to be a beginning. The dawning of a better future, a new age.

For Dani, it is the end. 

In the morning, Jamie buys her a new pair of gloves at a landmark department store. They’re beautiful and expensive, turning Dani’s thoughts hideous as she likens the gesture to buying clothes for a corpse. It’s a waste of money, a waste of passion. She has all the clothes she needs. More than she needs, really, to see her through the remainder of life. 

But Jamie, sensitive to her unspoken anguish, slips them on her and says, “Your other ones were wearing a wee bit thin. I can’t abide you having cold hands.”

Dani’s other gloves suffer no such wear. 

The exchange inspires more of its kind. Jamie buys her a new scarf, earrings, and lipstick. Even as Dani feigns exasperation and directs Jamie’s attention to their budget, Jamie smiles, wraps her arms around her waist, and kisses her cheek. She speaks sweetly, justifying the gifts by telling Dani that she’s beautiful and therefore deserves beautiful things. She treats Dani as if she were not dreary-eyed, limp-spirited, and hanging onto sanity by threads. She treats her like the light of her days, like the most radiant body in the sky.

It has always been this way; Jamie saving her from herself, from the darkness abound, by reminding Dani of the sacred beauty that survives in every second of life, this miraculous flicker of light and wonder. For years and years she has kept Dani tethered to a world determined to cast her off from its turbulent periphery, and she will never let go. Not until Dani lets go of her first. 

The rest of their vacation is a dream. Gulls soar overhead. Dani browses glossy postcards of the Manhattan skyline, scratching the firmament in its lofty ambition, and t-shirts emblazoned with apples or the stoic silhouette of the World Trade Center. Yellow taxi cabs swarm as the city’s most vital organelles, glistening with morning dew. There’s art, laughter, and persistence. And there’s Jamie, catching sunlight for Dani when she can’t collect any for herself.

Dani remembers all the places where they have loved each other. Surely, she thinks, immense love must transform the very air it occurs within, for that is a law of nature, that significant forces take measurable effect on their surroundings. Surely there exists an echo of them in the places they’ve touched. One that shall survive forever and reach out to hold those who stand here later. Perhaps they will sense that something wonderful happened here, and inherit the love of that moment, and believe that something wonderful shall happen to them, too.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, thank you so much for your support over these sixteen weeks. I poured my entire heart into Afterglow. It was truly a labor of love. And every view, kudos, and comment was instrumental to its success. You were as much a part of this story as I was. I’m humbled by your tremendous response and hope you’ll join me for at least one more project with these two. 
> 
> I will be spending the next few weeks outlining my next story and posting Afterglow extras (notes, cut scenes, etc.) to my tumblr [@sigmalied](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15bt1p6aoyipwzCmxLJgZR14JlWPB0VpG-5I5l8_ngdk/edit?usp=sharing). I will also continue to support this story by going through it again and administering micro-edits and polish wherever necessary. Please see the end of chapter notes for a link to my reflective essay discussing Afterglow’s design decisions, symbols, references, and more. 
> 
> Please enjoy this [teaser cover](https://sigmalied.tumblr.com/post/643053149669785600) for my next Damie project.

**xxxi. (the better tomorrows)**

A column of light settles over Dani, heating her face and reddening the darkness imposed by her eyelids. She wakes, mildly perturbed, to Jamie opening the curtains over the bedroom window. 

“You’re not up yet?” Jamie asks, disregarding the obvious evidence to the contrary. “Come on, then. You know what day it is, right?”

She does not. At the moment, Dani can’t even recall what day of the week it is. They are all the same. The sun rises and the sun sets, and somewhere in between, she scours the labyrinthian corridors of her gloom for a glimmer of sense or reason. She sits upright to hear what Jamie has to say.

Jamie sits on the bed, squeezes Dani’s knee, and smiles. “It’s your birthday,” she answers. “Welcome to your forties. Join the club, all that.”

The information doesn’t readily process. Is she really forty? Dani’s alleged age wrestles her weakened comprehension of time. Just yesterday she felt twenty years old again. Today she feels closer to eighty. But Jamie wouldn’t lie to her, so she believes her. 

“Heading to the store in a bit,” says Jamie. “Do you want me to pick up a cake? Anything special you want for dinner? Also, when I was at the shop earlier, Amy mentioned she had a gift for you. How would you feel about giving her a call, inviting her over for a few hours? We could extend the invitation, too, if you like. Could let the other staff know—”

Ironically, while Jamie is attempting to dissuade reclusive behavior, she only succeeds in reinforcing it. Her varied propositions condense like stones in Dani’s stomach. Cakes, gifts, company. All of it, as overwhelming and injuriously excessive as beaming light and sound onto a migraine. There’s no point. Any semblance of celebration would just accentuate Dani’s inability to express elation alongside everyone else. She longs to crawl back under the bedsheets and return to sleep.

Undeterred by Dani’s dull expression, Jamie adds, “I got you something, too, of course. Do you want to see it now? Maybe around dinner?”

With a sigh, Dani says, “Jamie, is it okay if we just, _not_ do anything special? I really don’t feel good today.”

That silences Jamie. After a moment, she concedes. “Course. It’s _your_ birthday. We play by your rules. But if you change your mind at any point in the day, let me know.” Upon withdrawing her hand, she asks, “Is there anything I can do right now? Are you hungry?”

Dani chases after her hand to briefly grasp it. “Can I have some coffee?”

Humility lights Jamie’s eyes as she nods and rises to fulfill the request. In actuality, Dani doesn’t even want coffee. She’s only sending Jamie on the minor errand to sate her obvious itching to please her in some capacity. Otherwise, Dani would’ve had to tell her the truth. There is nothing joyous about today, because Dani cannot project her survival beyond the year’s end. The premonition resounds in every molecule of her being: this is her final birthday. 

When Jamie returns with coffee, Dani drinks it to please her, who believes she’s pleased Dani. And that suffices for contentment. Never mind the coffee; mutual thoughtfulness alone is enough to grant them reentry into the ouroboros of affirmation. 

Jamie reveals her gift. It’s a white poinsettia brooch for the holidays, suspiciously alike the much rarer moonflower in appearance. Dani pins it on immediately, in the middle of summer, knowing she cannot afford to await winter. Its presence upon her breast is a badge of something weighty. Something like dignity or tenacity. So she wears it throughout the day, letting it bolster her mood and mindset. Not to the extent of optimism, but to grace.

She asks Jamie to accompany her in dressing with formality in mind. Jamie obliges, not realizing that Dani is attending the day as a funeral in advance. They spend hours watching movies that can’t make Dani laugh or cry anymore. Dani lets Jamie prepare her favorite dinner, fearing no mishap, for all food is universally starting to taste like ash in her mouth. When night comes, Dani lies in bed half-nude, receiving a massage from Jamie’s hands, well-anointed with a scented lotion. She enjoys the company and attention, but laments her body’s disinclination toward arousal, as would’ve been the inevitable response years previously. 

Her fortieth birthday is an exercise in performative normalcy. To what end, she can’t say _._

Before turning into bed, Dani washes her face in the bathroom and peels back a corner of the white sheet over the mirror to glimpse her reflection. In newfound acceptance - and morbid curiosity - Dani has begun routinely checking. She now sees herself only half the time, at best. 

Tonight, it’s the Lady.

One week later, Dani sleepwalks. It’s different than previous instances, in that Dani is marginally conscious of her nocturnal motions.

Sometime after midnight, Dani rises. A passive daze keeps her so divorced from herself Dani feels as though she’s spectating a stranger’s body. On slow ambling steps she approaches the bedroom window to part the curtains. She lifts a hand, skating fingertips over the glass as if descrying the transparent barrier for the first time. The surface is cool, but not cold, from the tepid August night. Upon pressing her cheek to the window, she gazes with involuntary longing at the quiet streets. 

Over time her consciousness grows, promoting her from semi-dreaming passenger to fully-aware hostage. When she tries to pull back from the window, Dani finds her body disobedient. She’s paralyzed where she stands, braced against the glass as if a physical presence were assertively bidding her to remain there. In mounting panic, Dani’s pattern of breathing devolves. She tries to speak, to cry out for Jamie, but her voice is equally defiant. 

There she’s held captive, limbs locked into position so rigidly it hurts. Her negligible volition manifests as eye movement, straining to see the bed from the periphery of her vision as fearful tears glide down her cheeks. 

Jamie is fast asleep and does not stir for thirty more minutes. For Dani, it is an eternity of torment.

When Jamie finally shifts in her sleep, she notices something amiss. No body impeding her outstretched arm, or a conspicuous lack of heat maintained by the space beside her. She opens her eyes, apprehends Dani’s absence, and glances about to locate her. 

Dani hears a rapid shuffling of sheets and footfalls. Jamie is upon her within seconds, saying, “Dani? _Dani?_ What’s wrong? Can you hear me?”

By meeting her gaze, Dani pleads in silence. 

Jamie tries to remove her from the window, but a foreign will protests her guidance and keeps Dani bolted in place. The lasting plea in Dani’s eyes contradicts her obstinance, helping Jamie infer her unnatural imprisonment. When she can’t move Dani through combined will, Jamie resorts to force. Not enough to inflict pain or injury, but certainly more force than she has _ever_ touched Dani with. Jamie hauls her to the bed where she must hold her down, suppressing the weak but determined struggle exerted by the body beneath hers. 

It’s horrific, this parasitic demand. Dani’s insides churn with a loathsome illness so deep it nauseates her soul. She’s no more than an animal in Jamie’s arms, something so base and inhuman she wonders if she’ll ever be herself again provided she survives this, or whether her flesh might learn these traumatic patterns, remember them, and _become_ them.

Her throes peak in desperation, screaming through her blood. The imposter fury of Dani’s hands assaults Jamie’s forearms until her wrists are restrained, while the soles of her feet seek violent purchase against the floor until Jamie can hoist her further over the mattress. Her grip is tight and unceremonious. 

“I’m sorry,” Jamie grieves, brimming with guilt for what the situation has required of her. “I’m sorry, Dani, I’m _so_ sorry—”

Dani aches to reassure her. This is precisely what she needs Jamie to do, because in this moment her body is not her own, and they must do everything they can to recover it. But this is an aspect of atrocity. It’s a nightmare come alive, and Jamie’s despair over contributing to it isn’t unwarranted. They are both, then, fitful with despair. They are both victims of the Lady’s possession, in being coerced to speak her poisonous language of malice, of all places in the bedroom, and between themselves. 

Through Jamie’s unrelenting pressure the Lady retreats, routed, but the damage she’s wrought is substantial. After Dani settles down, Jamie warily recomposes the cage of her arms to a consoling enfold. The first sounds Dani makes in reply are choked whimpers and whines. Gradually, her syllables regain sophistication. She says Jamie’s name in a shaking sob. 

Jamie kisses her head, whispering pained reassurances, “You’re okay. You’re okay. Shh... Easy. You’re okay. Can you do something for me, sweetheart? Can you hold out one finger?”

The trembling digits of Dani’s right hand curl into her palm, leaving her index extended. The display of volition inspires enormous relief. Jamie holds her close, apologizing on compulsion for handling her so abrasively. She cannot seem to reconcile an act of ostensible harm with one of protection. They cannot coexist in her mind, a place Dani has always known to be resolute with clear moral conviction. 

An hour later, Dani lies with her head resting on Jamie’s chest and an arm draped over her waist. Jamie rubs her back, trying to soothe the remnants of her distress. They’re too terrified and shaken up to sleep. 

Quietly, Dani asks, “What if I had hurt you?”

Jamie sounds dismal when she answers, “You didn’t.”

“But what if I did?”

“You wouldn’t have.”

Dani wonders if Jamie really believes that, because she isn’t so sure. Maybe Jamie _has_ to believe that, in order to shield herself from the doubt weaponized against them. The way Jamie holds her now - encompassing as much of Dani as she can - speaks to a mutual realization. While they were able to save Dani now, what guarantee of repeated success do they have for the next time it happens?

Doom is upon them, pursuing them in a wild sprint from the underbrush. And they cannot outrun it. 

On Sunday, they bring lunch to the nursery. She and Jamie lie abreast on a gingham blanket stretched over an even patch of terrain, facing an overcast sky. A few yards away stands the yew, six feet tall, deepest emerald, holding a bounty of red arils. Its branches bow in a docile wind. Dani spends abnormal time looking at it, marveling at how it’s grown over the years. Jamie’s coddled it with all her heart.

Even with Jamie’s hand clutched in hers, Dani imagines herself clipping a sprig from the yew and brewing a tea from it. She wonders if the premature destruction of her body would cast the Lady out through inhabitability. But then what? Would the Lady be free to wander as a terror upon the city, an infinitely worse threat than what she posed from Bly’s lake? She can’t risk that happening. She can’t afford to be selfish. Dani must see her burden through, for everyone’s sake. Everyone’s but her own. 

Beside her, Jamie watches Dani stare at the yew. She hazards the question, “How are you feeling?” 

_I don’t_ , Dani wants to say. _I can’t feel anything anymore._

Nothing but a vestigial sense of duty, love for Jamie, and the gargantuan weight of dread. Instead, she replies in vague terms, “Not so good.”

Jamie props herself up on her side to better face her. She doesn’t say anything for a while, merely fondling their hands together and surveying the faint gleam of will in Dani’s expression. At length, she speaks softly, “One day at a time. When today is bad, we get through it. And we hope tomorrow will be better. Right?”

Dani nods, but the motion quells when she sees a sheen of moisture in Jamie’s eyes.

“But what happens,” says Jamie, her voice so quiet it breaks, “when there are no more good tomorrows?” She pauses to swallow her grief, but there’s too much of it. Her words drown in a sea of it when she continues, “Every day I look at you, and I see so much pain. And we’re holding on, saying _one day at a time_ , but those days keep getting worse. Dani, please be honest with me. Am I torturing you?”

The question catches her by surprise. Dani can hardly comprehend it. 

“Am I torturing you,” Jamie repeats, “by insisting that you stay? You know I’d do _anything_ for you, that I’ll take care of you until it’s time, but... when is that time? Has it already passed?”

Not wanting to answer recklessly, Dani withdraws into contemplation. She looks back at the sky, at rolling undertows of moody blue-gray and spots where sunlight seeps through its dense fabric. Its suffocating enormity compels Dani to shut her eyes. 

They’ve been fighting this losing war for years, and every day of it has become an uphill skirmish with no victory in sight. They are gravely wounded and fatigued. There is no hope. There is no escape. There is only Jamie at her side, weathering the darkness with her. And yet, that itself merits the struggle.

Dani finally emerges from thought. “Do you remember,” she quietly says, “last month, when we got the civil union? And when you showed me the certificate, I stared at it for an _hour?_ Just to see our names there, together, knowing that we’d be remembered?”

Jamie nods and strokes her thumb over Dani’s hand. 

“And, remember when you went to the library last week and brought back that poetry anthology, and you read it to me?”

She nods again, recalling fondly, “You smiled. Like you used to.”

“I’m so glad,” says Dani, as Jamie kisses her hand, “that I got to experience those things with you. I’m so glad.” 

A stoic breeze ruffles through Jamie’s hair and the collar of her shirt. She keeps Dani’s hand near her lips, caressing it while she can.

Dani will not survive the year. But as long its final battles are fought to achieve more time with Jamie, they are never in vain.

 _One day at a time,_ Dani remembers Jamie saying to her, years ago at that roadside diner. _As long as those days are with you._

**xxxii. (the lighthouse)**

The final day doesn’t expressly feel like one. It’s like any ordinary October day. A pleasant one, even. Or as pleasant as one can be, this far into the twilight of Dani’s life.

Dani sleeps in. Around nine o’clock, she’s roused by the sound of Jamie returning home from checking on their business. She’s brought a fresh bouquet for the console table: aster, blue hyacinth, and lilies. She fetches Dani from bed. Squeezes her hand, strokes sleep-mussed hair from her face, and patiently awaits Dani’s higher awareness to recover from sublimation. For a full minute, Dani embodies no more complex a presence than the bed itself. Eventually, she regards Jamie with cognizance and recognition. Jamie speaks endearments, kisses Dani’s head when she responds, and permits her more time to further awaken. 

Over breakfast, they plan a small outing. While Jamie cleans up, Dani showers and dresses into clothes laid out the night before; one of several premeditated outfits assembled whenever Dani phases into a perspective sensitive enough to aesthetic. During her bouts of apathy, Jamie assumes the responsibility of replicating Dani’s typical wardrobe habits. In the bedroom, Jamie brushes her hair, applies Dani’s modest makeup, and files her nails for her.

Every movement is automated by inveterate routine. Dani follows familiar paths of ritual and compliance, never deviating, never entertaining whim. Jamie is the only factor reminding her that uniqueness and preference still exist within her, that she retains the ability to say _yes_ or _no_ and alter the day’s course. Her questions, her requests for consent and opinion, sustain what little agency Dani clings to. 

They take a walk in the park. Jamie links their arms and lays a supplementary hand on the sleeve of Dani’s jacket while leading them down a footpath winding between yellowing trees and grass. 

From the park bench they settle into, Dani watches children chase each other over gentle hills. Leaves crunch beneath their sprints. Nearby, a dozen pigeons aimlessly mill about, cooing. A plane passes overhead, trailed by its lagging drone. Dani tries with all her might to access these observations, seeking corporeal totality in the fine texture of individual moments.

She practices this meditation everywhere. She’ll focus on the scent of detergent in freshly-laundered clothes. A tiny spider creeping along the baseboard near the front door. Watering their glossy houseplants and witnessing the soil darken and breathe. The lingering warmth in Jamie’s side of the bed after she’s risen first.

But it all eludes her grasp, locked behind some cryptic riddle with a solution everyone else in the world knows and cannot share with her. Everything is a shadow, a projection, of a higher dimensionality that Dani can no longer perceive.

She feels cavernous, unable to fill her own flesh. When the dwindling pieces of her spread out, she is made porous and tenuous; liable to scatter like dust in the slightest breeze. When the pieces of her huddle densely together, she leaves vast swaths of barren space for wicked influences to occupy in her absence. 

Dani knows, instinctively, that if she lets go of Jamie for an instant she’ll disappear. 

Fifteen minutes later, Jamie notes dark clouds gathering on the horizon. She remarks, “Looks like rain. We should head back soon.”

At home, Dani sits in the armchair to resume an embroidery project of a willow beside a pond. She’s four days in, and by her best estimate, should finish by the end of the week. 

Jamie accompanies her. She makes coffee. Saturates Dani’s with cream and sugar the way she likes, while leaving hers black. In silence she reviews a folder of business documents. Even now, as they sit marginally apart, neither speaking nor touching, Dani hangs onto her through company alone.

The rain arrives before sundown, rumbling over the windows and exterior walls. After dinner, Jamie reads to her in bed. Dani lays her head in her lap as Jamie threads her fingers through her hair. Several pages in, Jamie relocates her hand. She fits it into Dani’s and holds them together over her heart. 

Jamie reads, “But as, just before sleep, things simplify themselves so that only one of all the myriad details has power to assert itself—”

Dani peers up at her, studying the distinguished glints of silver running through Jamie’s hair, and the shallow lines in her forehead and corners of her eyes that don’t fade anymore upon relaxation. She then becomes acutely aware of a tragedy. Never again shall anyone look upon Jamie with her sheer depth of affection. Never again will Jamie be the same guiding light through terrible storms, the same garden of peace and warmth and kindness that’s lovingly held Dani for years. That particular beautiful, wonderful Jamie is Dani’s, and it will die with her. 

She feels so small, so frail. While Jamie holds dear the body of a woman, Dani can’t fathom how she could be any larger than a butterfly coming to roost in her hands for the final time. 

Jamie finishes the chapter. Before shutting the book, she determines, “Not much left. Think we’ll finish this one tomorrow.” 

Noticing the wistfulness in Dani’s eyes, Jamie gazes back in acknowledgement of her pain, and commiserates with her own. They are sensing again the approaching finality that’s haunted them these last few weeks, sparing few opportunities for respite. 

When Jamie cradles her cheek in a comforting hand, stroking her with a thumb, she seems to ask, _Was I a good wife to you? Did I make you happy? Did I love you enough? Did I take care of you?_

And by covering Jamie’s hand with her own and leaning into her palm, Dani replies, _Yes. You were. You did._

At ten o’clock, they retire to bed. Outside, the rain pours hard. The lamp on Jamie’s nightstand emits the last source of light in the room as she faithfully performs one more daily ritual. She kisses Dani’s head, her lips, the hand bearing her wedding ring, and says to her, “Goodnight. I love you.”

Dani replies, “I love you, too,” and keeps holding onto Jamie for as long as she can. 

**xxxiii. (to sleep)**

When Dani wakes to find her hand hovering over Jamie’s throat, she knows her time has come. The Lady has come, after patiently chipping away at the life of love that insulated Dani from her wrath for so long. 

There is no doubt or hesitation. She has lost enough of herself to endanger Jamie’s life. As far as Dani is concerned, through this dereliction she is already dead, and what remains of her persistence is the duty of burial. 

One day, maybe Jamie will forgive her for breaking her heart. 

She leaves a note. A brief one; for every minute Dani spends in the apartment is another opportunity for the Lady to seize control again. And there is nothing she could say to Jamie now that she hasn’t said or conveyed before.

“You’ll stay in touch with Owen, right?” Dani beseeched her at the start of October. “And your brother? You’ll keep gardening, and you’ll tell stories, and you’ll be good, and you won’t lose your temper?”

In tears, Jamie had nodded, and promised.

This is merely a final goodbye, imbued with as much affection as she can muster on so short of notice.

It’s a strange task, deciding what to wear to one’s grave. Dani is so far gone she can’t be sure if it’s even her that’s pulling on a dress and earrings as though she were concerned with her debut appearance to the realm of purgatory. Stranger is the solitude of cab rides and the flight overseas, where Dani spends hours gazing at her empty hand and the empty seat beside hers. Empty, save for the gleam of her wedding ring. She consoles herself by believing it’s Jamie eternally holding her hand from afar. 

At Bly, Dani stands enveloped in a mid-morning fog as she faces the lake. The water is a dim mirror without light. There isn’t a sound among the trees, no birdsong or rustling leaves in eulogy. 

Throughout the final stretch of her journey, she envisions Bly’s gardens resurrecting around her. The wild overgrowth, bereaved of guiding hands, temporarily peels back to grant a vision of the manicured glory Jamie once orchestrated. Echoes of the past shimmer through the fog. Dani sees the kids, smiling brightly at their first meeting. She sees Hannah and Owen, walking in hushed conversation. She sees herself and Jamie, hand in hand, fleeing the rain as they run to bed together for the first time. She sees them lazing on the lawn, comfortable in each other’s silence as they always were. 

Dani sheds her coat and shoes and approaches the strand as if the lake were the sheets of her bed, folding back to welcome her weary soul. The water is cold around her ankles. She can’t weep. There is not enough left of her to weep. She moves like the setting sun, driven by unfaltering instinct to a place beyond the horizon. Her final thoughts, as the waterline rises to her breast, are of Jamie - the keeper of her entire heart, her home, her inextinguishable candle in the dark. 

_Jamie, Jamie, Jamie._

It’s prayer. It’s veneration. It’s vow. 

The waters close overhead. Within a few short minutes, the ripples attenuate, and all is still again. 

Over time, Dani will become as the flowers, trees, and sky. She will fade into nature, into the unkempt gardens whose roots forever remember and cherish the hands that tended them long ago. No vestige of Dani’s identity shall survive. Nothing but the compassion that dispelled the sickness looming over Bly, returning its grounds to splendor.

Through self-sacrifice, Dani becomes a being of will, faith, and love; not so unlike the principles the Lady once twisted into rage. Amalgamated at the bottom of the lake, they achieve harmony upon the enlightenment Dani brings to their shared vessel. And while the Lady’s memories are withered, lost to time, Dani’s are not. Not for many more decades.

When Dani rises to walk, to dream, it shall not be in penance. She will not be condemned to cycle through dismal regrets. That is not the preoccupation of her undeath. 

Her charge, as the new Lady of the Lake, is gentle guardianship. Dreams of her wonderful life inspire her to this role, reverberating and revolving through the seasons. It is a seemingly infinite bask in the greatest, happiest, brightest days she and Jamie built together, glowing tenderly, carrying her soul to sleep. 

In spring, Dani falls in love again. In summer, her joy blooms. In autumn, she and Jamie marry. In winter, they prove their devotion to one another through tremendous hardship. 

Distance and time melt away. For longer than anything else, Dani holds onto Jamie’s heart. She knows its shape, its temperament, its predictable pattern of ritual. She finds it anywhere in the world simply by yearning for it. On nights where Dani dreams, she reaches out through their mutual ache for one another. She touches Jamie, brings her along to reminisce, and is gone by daybreak.

When Dani first wakes to walk and dream, she finds herself on a crisp lawn with stems of twined clover in her hands. The atmosphere of heady golden sunlight follows a morning of light rain; soft, hazy, and ethereal. She looks up and sees Jamie, impossibly young again, smiling warmly with the promise of many blissful years shining in her eyes.

Jamie extends her pinky finger and Dani takes hold of it, linking them tightly together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Afterglow: A Reflective Analysis](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15bt1p6aoyipwzCmxLJgZR14JlWPB0VpG-5I5l8_ngdk/edit?usp=sharing) (link to Google doc)


End file.
